


Saving Grace

by Hopelesslydevoted21d



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 30,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopelesslydevoted21d/pseuds/Hopelesslydevoted21d
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>19 year old Elena Anderson's life was turned upside down when she was ripped from her home in New York city to live with her Dad in London, England after a suicide attempt.  She's better for the most part but her snobby 14 year old sister tests her progress.  She feels alone and betrayed living in a strange city with a family she didn't know about.  But what happens when she runs into Zayn Malik, the celebrity of her dreams? Could he be her saving Grace?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Meet-Cute

I sat on a sofa in a deserted Starbucks drinking my coffee and staring out the window, the only solace I could find in this strange, unfamiliar city. I was lost in thought when a shadowy figure sat on the sofa across from me and set his drink down on the coffee table.

“Rough day?” the stranger’s melodic voice rang out.

I mustered up all of the energy I could to turn my head towards him and respond. “You could say that” I mused and offered the stranger a half hearted smile. Well he wasn’t a stranger per se, I knew exactly who he was, he was Zayn Malik form One Direction. Any other day and I probably would have fangirled and asked for a picture, but today I couldn’t care less.  
“You’re not from London are you? New York by the sound of your accent.” He continued on.

I laughed, although I didn’t actually laugh because I just didn’t have the energy, my laugh was more of a puff of air leaving my nose and a half smile.

“Yeah.” I confirmed

“Are you in London by yourself?”

“No. I came to live with my dad.”

“And he let you out in the streets of London by yourself on your first day here?” he inquired skeptically.

“Not exactly, my step-mom and sister were showing me around London.”

“Did they forget you or something? Like a wallet?”

“No. I may or may not have ditched them the first chance I got.”

“Why?”

The question stopped my train of thought. What was I supposed to say? Oh I didn’t know that they even existed until I met them this morning and I’m pretty sure they didn’t know about me until last night and I’m pretty sure the only reason they’re spending time with me is because they have me under 24 hour suicide watch. Yeah that wasn’t exactly something I wanted to divulge. So I settled with the closest second.

“I guess I just didn’t appreciate their enthusiasm at what my body felt was 7 in the morning.”

“Ahh. I get it. Jet lag’s a bitch.”

This time I actually let out a chuckle. “Yeah.” I agreed.

“When did you get in?”

“7 this morning.”

“And they drug you out of the house at noon?”

“9 actually.”

“They only gave you two hours of sleep?”

“Yupp.”

“Brutal.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I have an idea!” he exclaimed.

“What’s your idea.” I mocked, sitting up straight and paying closer attention than before.

“Well you need someone to show you around London, but you also need some much needed rest. So why don’t you come to the studio with me, and you can sleep while I record, and then my mates and I can show you around London.”

“You’re inviting me to spend the day with you? You don’t even know me; I’m a stranger to you! And I don’t know you, for all I know you could be an axe murderer luring me in for your next kill.”

“Well, I promise I’m not an axe murderer, and if you tell me your name then you won’t be a stranger.”

“Elena.”

“Nice to meet you Elena, I’m Zayn.”

“I’m aware.”

He raised his eyebrow questioningly and a smirk pulled at his lips. “I thought you didn’t know me?”

“I don’t. I know who you are but I don’t know you. You could still be an axe murderer for all I know.”

“Like I said before, I’m not an axe murderer.”

“I’m sure that’s what all the axe murderers say.” I replied cheekily as we walked out of the coffee shop and he hailed a taxi. I could tell my day was turning around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry I’m so sucky at first chapters they’re always way too short but I just felt like that was a good place to end it and really wanted to get it to you guys because I’m really excited about writing it. I promise that future chapters will be longer and better! Please let me know what you think! As always feedback is always welcome


	2. Dinner with Friends

I brought her to a room where she could sleep. I could tell she needed it, you could see it in her face; she was just exhausted. She was asleep in a few minutes, god she was gorgeous, even like this, with no effort put into what she looked like. I liked that she had the confidence to not care what she looked like, especially when she knew she would be meeting the boys, either that or she just didn’t care who we were, either way it was attractive. I ran down the hall to the recording booth, knowing I was late and probably wouldn’t hear the end of it.

“Oi! Where have you been?” Niall scolded.

“Sorry I got…distracted.” I responded.

“And did this distraction have long blonde hair and nice boobs?” Harry asked.

“NO!…she has short brown hair.” I replied meekly.

“And what’s so special about this one?” Louis chimed in.

I scowled. I knew they didn’t think much of her; lately I had been falling for practically every girl I saw.

“It’s her first day in London and she wasn’t given a very good tour so I told her we’d give her one.”

“Oh? And where is this mysterious girl?” Louis mocked. “Could she actually resist the Zayn Malik charm?”

“She’s in the lounge sleeping. Her flight got in at seven and her family woke her back up at nine. So I told her she could sleep until we’re finished.”

“So she just decided to spend the day with 5 complete strangers?” Liam mused.

“Well we aren’t exactly complete strangers she knows who we are.”

“Ahh I see! She’s a mega-fan who couldn’t resist the idea of spending the day with us.” Louis rolled his eyes.

“Hey it’s not like that! If she was really a crazy fan do you think she would be sleeping in the other room instead of in here asking us a million questions?”

“I mean she could just need some sleep, she could wake up fully rested and her crazy could come out.” Harry offered.

“I really don’t think that’ll happen. When I invited her here she jokingly accused me of being an axe murderer luring her to her death.”

“Yeah because that doesn’t sound crazy.” Louis scoffed.

“Ok guys! Let’s not make assumptions about this poor girl! We haven’t even met her.” Liam scolded.

We got back to work and after an hour or so, stopped for a short break.

*****

I woke up after about an hour to the sound of clinking. But I didn’t mind, it was one of those deep sleeps where you feel like you just woke up from a 9 month hibernation. I felt ten times better than this morning. I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes, groaning in the process.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.” Louis smiled.

“No worries.” I smiled back.

“Tea?” he offered.

I shook my head. “No thanks. Are you done recording?”

“No not yet. Sorry.”

“Then you probably shouldn’t be drinking tea. It dries out the throat.”

“Oh? And you know this because you’re a doctor?”

“No! I was just friends with all the theatre geeks in high school. They had a ‘no caffeine 24 hours before a performance’ rule.”

“Oh I’m sure that went over well.” He chuckled.

“Oh yeah they hated it! Especially the people who had to be there every day of tech week.”

We were interrupted by my phone buzzing on the counter next to him.

“Your phone has been going off like crazy.” He picked it up and read the caller ID. “People called Lady Tremaine and Drizella keep calling you?”

I laughed at his confusion. “Evil step mother and step sister from Cinderella.” I explained.

“Ahh” he smiled and bit back a laugh. “Well you might want to answer; they’ve called you 26 times.” He tossed me the phone and left.

I groaned as I stared at my phone. I took a deep breath and answered.

“Hey Lacey.” I cheerily greeted my ‘sister’.

“Where are you? We turned around and you were gone! You haven’t answered any of our calls! We thought something happened to you.” It wasn’t Lacey; it was Julia, my step-mother.

“Yeah sorry. I needed some coffee so I ducked into a Starbucks. I’m fine.”

“Nice try! We’ve been to every Starbucks around and you weren’t at any of them!”

“Well I didn’t stay at the Starbucks! I met a guy there!”

“You ran off around London with a guy you just met? You can’t do that this is a big city that could be dangerous!”She yelled through the phone.

“Relax! I’m fine! You think I don’t know what’s dangerous! I lived in New York City! That’s pretty much ‘how to not get murdered 101’.”

She huffed. “Fine! Just make sure you’re home before 11.” She compromised in defeat.

“OK”

I got up and walked out of the lounge in hopes of finding where Zayn was, or at least where Louis went. I walked down the hall and saw Louis and Harry standing at the end having a conversation.

“Hey!” I chirped as I walked up to them.

“You must be Elena” Harry responded.

“Depends on who’s asking.”

“A boy band member who’s going to double as a tour guide this afternoon?”

“Well for a boy band member who’s going to double as a tour guide…yes, I am Elena.”

“Well it’s a pleasure to meet you Elena.” He smiled.

“C’mon guys we better get back to work.” Liam interrupted. “Elena? Right?” he added when he noticed me.

“Yeah” I responded.

“C’mon” Louis nodded in the direction they were headed. “You can watch if you want, we shouldn’t be that much longer.” He offered.

“OK thanks.”

I watched them record for another hour or so, although I wasn’t really paying attention to anything, lost in my own thoughts. When I woke yesterday morning I was thrilled, I finally got to go home and I actually felt a lot better, but then I didn’t really get to go home. I got a one-way plane ticket to London to live with my dad. Silly me thought that would be the worst of it, but no, it got worse when I realized I was intruding on an entire family I didn’t know existed. My thoughts were interrupted by Zayn entering the room I was watching from.

“Hey, you ready to go?” He asked.

“Yupp!” I smiled.

They took me around London showing me all the touristy spots but also some hole in the wall places that only the locals really know about. They were super nice and I didn’t really feel uncomfortable around them, like I did with the rest of the world. They made it easy though, acting like we were already friends. After a few hours Niall complained about being hungry.

“Oh my god yes! I’m starving!” I eagerly agreed with him.

“OK then, what d’ya feel like having?” Zayn asked me.

“I don’t really care. In my opinion, food is food, food is good.” I replied.

“I like this one Zayn.” Niall chuckled.

After a bit of discussion they decided on some restaurant I’ve never heard of. Louis pulled out his phone and texted someone, then put it away again.

“El is gonna meet us there.” Louis said.

A chorus of greats rang out in response to Louis’ announcement. We arrived at the restaurant and Eleanor was already there waiting for us. 

“This is Zayn’s friend Elena. Elena this is Eleanor.” Louis introduced.

“Oh good I don’t have to deal with them alone,” she said as she pulled me into a hug.

“They are a little intense aren’t they?” I chuckled.

They were all super nice and for some reason I felt really comfortable around them. It was nice, I felt like I had made some friends in London and right now I really needed friends. 

“So why are you in London?” Eleanor asked.

“I came to live with my dad” I explained.

“Can I ask why?”

“I―uh―I tried to commit suicide.” I stared at the plate in front of me feeling awkward with their beady eyes staring at me with their shocked faces. I suddenly didn’t feel as comfortable as I had before but El didn’t miss a beat.

“So did you want to come here?” she asked as if I hadn’t just dropped a bomb.

“Not really. I got out of rehab and had a plane ticket waiting for me. My parents thought I could use a change of scenery.”

“So that’s why you have your step-mum and step-sister as the villains from Cinderella in your phone?” Louis asked.

“Yeah.” I chuckled.

“Are they that bad?” Eleanor asked shocked.

“Not really. Julia, my step-mother, just seems really controlling and my sister…is fourteen and I kicked her out of half her room…so she kinda hates me.”

“Ahh. 14 year old sisters, moody aren’t they?” Louis joked.

“Oh if looks could kill!” I laughed.

“So how many siblings do you have?” Eleanor asked

“Well, there’s my 16 year old brother Jake, my 14 year old sister Lacey, my 12 year old brother Drew, and 6 year old twins Anna and Mallory, so 5.”

“Wow!” Niall said in shock. 

We talked a little more about nothing in particular. Eleanor and I really connected and we exchanged phone numbers, she said I could call her if I ever needed anything, she was really sweet. Zayn asked me if I had to be getting home but I told him that I didn’t have to be back until eleven so everyone decided to have a movie night at Harry’s. 

“Why my place?” Harry complained when his place was volunteered by Liam.

“Because you have all the good movies.” Liam explained.

“Yeah ok fair enough.” He conceded.

We were at Harry’s and the boys were simultaneously making popcorn and fighting over what movie to watch. I was sitting on the couch fiddling with my phone while Eleanor was making sure the boys didn’t burn the house down trying to make popcorn. When she came back in she noticed the tattoo on my left arm.

“Permanent solution?” she asked curiously.

“Hmm?”

“Your tattoo.” She clarified.

“Oh. Yeah. The other arm says temporary problem.” I explained as I held out my other arm. “I got them above my scras from my attempted suicide, just as a reminder that suicide isn’t the answer. My own kind of everyday therapy I guess.”

“That’s cool.”

“Thanks.”

When the movie was over Zayn offered to take me home and I accepted. I gave him my address and he drove me home in silence. His grip was tight on the wheel and if I didn’t know any better I would have thought he was angry. He insisted on walking me to the door and when we got there he had a case of word vomit.

“Elena, I really like you and I think you’re a really cool person and I really enjoyed hanging out with you today and I really hope that you liked spending the day with me too, well us more like but anyway I was just wondering if maybe you would like to go out with me tomorrow night like on a date like thing, but if not that’s totally cool too.” Everything he said came out quickly and in one breath but I was pretty sure I understood what he had said.

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

“You would?” he asked relieved, letting out a breath I didn’t know he was holding.

“Yeah.” I chuckled.

“Pick you up at seven?” he asked.

“Yeah, sounds great.”

“Great.” He walked away with the goofiest smile on his face.

I walked inside and my dad and Julia were sitting in the living room watching TV.

“Hey, how was your first day in London?” my dad asked.

“Good, I made some friends.”

“Friends as in plural, this morning there was only one.” Julia stated in shock.

“Well the day progressed on and I made 6 friends.”

“So was it as bad as you thought?” my dad asked.

“No not as bad.” I chuckled.

“Well there are leftovers in the fridge if you’re hungry.” Julia offered.

“Oh no thanks, I already ate.”

“Well we’re going out with some friends tomorrow night and you’re welcome to join us if you want” my dad explained.

“Thanks, but no thanks; I kind of already have plans.”

“That’s fine, as long as you’re not out all night without letting us know where you are, the only reason it was eleven tonight was because you didn’t have the code for the security system. We get that you’re 19 and we can’t stop you from doing anything, we just ask for some courtesy” Julia responded.

“Yeah of course. Anyways I think I’m going to sleep now, I had a long day.”

“Goodnight” they said in unison.

I went to the room I shared with Lacey and I tried to be as quiet as possible because she was already asleep. I climbed into bed and replayed the events of today in my head. I had met One Direction…AND Eleanor! I could believe it. I definitely couldn’t believe that the Zayn Malik asked me out! I was in a much better mood than this morning and it was time for some fangirling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, send me feedback and let me know how I’m doing.


	3. Date Night

I woke up around nine the next morning. I had a pretty hard time trying to sleep last night, I was too wound up. But to be fair I had a pretty hectic day. Moving to London, meeting my favorite band, and not just meeting them but becoming friends with them, AND my favorite member of my favorite band asked me out. That was enough to keep anyone up. I was still tired and I was half tempted to roll over and go back to sleep, but I figured I would have to get used to the time change eventually, so I rolled out of bed and padded into the bathroom. When I was finished there I made my way downstairs to the kitchen to find something to eat, it didn’t look like anyone was home, which I didn’t mind, I wasn’t really in the mood to talk to anyone this morning. I walked over to the fridge and noticed a note on the kitchen counter.

Elena,

Sorry to leave you alone but your father and I have work, Jake took Drew to football practice, Lacey had cheer practice and the twins have a play-date. Try not to burn the house down while we’re gone.

Julia XX

I breathed a sigh of relief, I preferred being alone to stuck in a house with people I don’t know and am not comfortable with. Especially Lacey, with the looks I get from her, I can tell she doesn’t like me.

 

I decided that food could wait and I’d rather take a shower since no one was here, I had body issues and I really didn’t want to be in a towel around Lacey. I let the warm water wash over me while I thought about my date tonight. I have a date with Zayn Malik, the Zayn Malik, how did I get this lucky? I know I didn’t really act like it yesterday, but I really am a huge fan, I just wasn’t in a good mood yesterday ad I was too exhausted to put any energy into fangirling. Was that why he liked me? Because I wasn’t a fan? Should I tell him I’m a fan? I mean I’m pretty sure that if I tell him I have a blog dedicated to him and his band members and that I write fan-fiction about them he would run for the hills. They probably all would. Then I would lose the only friends I’ve had since elementary school. I really needed friends right now so I decided that it was best not to tell them and to just keep it vague if they ask.

It was about an hour later when I got out of the shower. I felt a million times better than I did yesterday, I felt like things were finally looking up for me. Maybe coming to London wasn’t so bad after all. I walked into my bedroom and checked my phone, seeing that I had a text message from Eleanor.

Hey babe I was wondering if you were up for a lunch date

I quickly typed out a reply declining, but then told myself that I needed to socialize more and that this could be good for me, besides El was a really nice person and I was comfortable around her. So I deleted my declining message and told her that I would love to go to lunch. She told me where and gave me directions and I said I would meet her there. It was only ten but we were meeting at noon so I decided to hold off on food. I opened my suitcases, since I hadn’t had the chance to unpack yet, and tried to find an appropriate outfit. It was hot out since it was mid-summer, and even though I didn’t really want to show my scars, I really didn’t want to be sweating. I decided that being physically comfortable was more important and I would just have to get over not wanting to show my scars. It was just El and she had already seen them and I just wouldn’t pay attention to anyone else. I decided on a blue lace tank top and some daisy dukes. When I was done getting dressed I headed back to the bathroom with my makeup and hair products in hand. I blow dried my hair and straightened the few stubborn pieces out. My dark brown hair came just above my shoulders when it was dry. I pulled out my makeup and decided to just throw on some light foundation, some eyeliner on the bottom lid and a swipe of mascara. I was running short on time so I didn’t want to go through the works. It was eleven thirty and we were meeting at noon, it would take me about fifteen minutes to get into the city and I preferred being everywhere early. So I grabbed my purse and threw on some gladiator sandals and ran out the door to find the cafe that El had suggested. I got a little turned around on the way but I figured out where I had gone wrong and found the cafe soon enough, living in New York I got lost a lot and I figured out how to navigate big cities. I was about five minutes early and El was already waiting for me. 

"Hey!" I said as I sat down across from her. 

"Hey did you find it ok?" She asked. 

"Yeah I got a little turned around but I figured it out" 

She just looked at me for a moment with a huge smile on her face “So?" She said excitedly. 

"What?" I chuckled confused. 

"What happened when Zayn took you home?" 

"He may have asked me out" I responded shyly. 

"Oh my gosh I knew it! Tell me everything!" 

"Well there isn’t much to tell. To be honest him asking me out was kind of a blur, I think he was super nervous. He’s picking me up at seven but other than that I have nothing." 

"Ok well after the date I want to hear everything!" 

"Ok!" 

We ordered lunch and chatted about mindless topics. 

"Can I ask you something?"She asked nervously. 

"Yeah anything" I replied. 

"Why did you try to kill yourself? You totally don’t have to answer I was just curious." 

"Um that’s not really an easy answer, but I guess the condensed version is that I just felt really bad about myself and I felt really alone and I just wanted it to end and I felt like it never would as long as I was alive." 

"Well, you’re not alone anymore, and you can talk to me about anything!" She offered. 

"Well thank you that means a lot!" 

"No problem! So do you want to do some shopping? We could get you a new outfit for you date tonight" she teased. 

"Yeah sure! Sounds like fun! Plus I could use a second opinion on what to wear tonight."

We walked down the crowded streets and ducked into a few stores here and there trying on different outfits. We were at about our third store when I saw a black dress with a heart cutout in the back that I was absolutely in love with. 

"What do you think?" I asked holding the dress out to Eleanor.

"Oh my gosh you have to try it on!" she squealed when she saw it.

I ducked into the fitting room and slipped it on and it actually didn’t look too bad. I stepped out to show El for a second opinion.

"Oh my gosh it’s gorgeous! You have to wear it on your date tonight!" she exclaimed.

"You think?" I asked, still a little unsure.

"Oh yes! It’ll make Zayn even more crazy for you! Now all we have to do is find shoes and some jewelry!"

"I actually have the jewelry department covered, some girls love shoes, I love accessories."

"OK then just shoes! C’mon let’s go buy this!"

I paid for the dress and we continued down the street but now we had a mission, find the perfect pair of shoes for the dress. We stumbled into a cute little boutique that looked pretty promising. El spotted a pair of black ankle boots with a bow on the side. They were adorable and I had to try them on, they only had one pair left and lucky for me, they were my size. 

"It’s a sign! They only have them in your size and they go perfectly with the dress! You have to get them; I’m not letting you walk out of here without them!" El said putting her foot down on the matter.

"Relax, I don’t need convincing they’re like the perfect pair of shoes, of course I’m not letting them get away." I joked. 

I bought the shoes and we continued our shopping, but for nothing in particular. It was just a way to spend out day and chit chat. El was really nice and I really enjoyed spending the day with her. I had forgotten what it felt like to have a friend. After another hour or so we were tired of walking and the heat was getting to us. So we hailed a cab and headed to her flat to hang out in air conditioning. 

"So are you excited about your date with Zayn?" she asked as she handed me a water bottle out of the fridge.

"Yeah. Kind of." I replied sheepishly.

"Do you like him a lot? I can tell he really likes you!"

"Yeah! He was so nice to me when I met him yesterday, and he didn’t even know me!"

"Yeah Zayn has the heart of a puppy. I think it’s impossible for him to be mean to anyone."

We hung out until about 4 and I decided I should probably go home and get ready. When I got home I showered again, I didn’t want to be all hot and sticky for my date. Lacey was home now so I brought my clothes to the bathroom with me while I showered and changed in there. For some reason I was really self conscious around her, and it couldn’t have been just because she’s super skinny, El is super skinny and I’m more than comfortable around her. There’s an air about Lacey that just makes me nervous. 

I walked into our room in my dress and pulled on my cream colored leather jacket and threw on my new shoes before heading over to my jewelry box and deciding on a simple gold bracelet and cocktail ring. 

"Why do you look all dressed up?" Lacey asked from her spot on the bed.

"I have a date" I explained

"With who?" she asked in a tone that conveyed both disgust and surprise.

"The guy I met at starbucks."

I didn’t want to tell her that I was going out with Zayn. She probably wouldn’t believe me anyway but the abundance of 1D posters on her walls and the way most of them were Zayn warned me that telling her probably wasn’t such a good idea. On the bright side at least I found something that we have in common. I moved to the vanity to put on my makeup. I only had about fifteen minutes so I kept it simple just some foundation, eyeliner, and mascara. At the last minute I decided that some lip gloss couldn’t hurt. I finished putting on my face and headed downstairs to find Jake and Drew wrestling on the floor. The doorbell rang and I was at the door in a flash.

"Wow! You look…WOW!" Zayn exclaimed

"Thanks" I blushed.

"Ready to go?" he asked.

"Yupp!" I was walking out the door when I heard a screaming six year olds fighting as well. I whipped my head back around in shock as I pulled the front door shut. "I’m so not used to having siblings!" I muttered.

Zayn just chuckled “You get used to it."

He opened the passenger door for me and I climbed in, “Oh quite the gentleman are we?" I joked.

"My mum taught me well!" he replied.

After a short fifteen minute drive we were at the restaurant and he was rushing around the car to open the door for me to get out. He was the perfect gentleman all night, opening doors and pulling out chairs. During dinner we got to know each other pretty well, although a lot of what he told me I already knew from being a fan. About halfway through the meal I excused myself to the restroom. When I came back Zayn had a question for me almost immediately. 

"What’s the tattoo on the back of your neck? 4.2.07? I saw it when you were walking away from the table."

"It’s the date that my cancer doctor told me I was in remission I was thirteen." I explained.

"Why on the back of your neck? Where you can’t see it? Wouldn’t you want it somewhere you could see it every day? As like a reminder of what you accomplished" he asked.

"Because the back of my neck is behind me, it’s like telling the universe that the cancer is behind me and I’m not letting it back in my life. Stupid I know but…" I trailed off.

"No. stupid is getting a bunch of random tattoos with no meaning," he chuckled “that’s actually really beautiful."

"Thanks." I blushed again.

"You’re cute when you blush" he stated, and I blushed even more.

The dinner went on and we talked more and it was really great. I had butterflies in my stomach the whole time, but not the kind where you’re nervous, but the kind where you really happy so your stomach kind of just flutters. As he was driving me home Zayn asked, “If you were strong enough to beat cancer, why did you end up trying to kill yourself?"

I found it refreshing that Zayn and Eleanor had the guts to ask me these questions; I was sick and tired of everyone walking on eggshells around me. 

"When I was diagnosed I kind of lost all of my friends, no one really knew what to say or how to act, after a few years I just couldn’t deal with feeling so alone anymore."

"Well you’re not alone anymore." he said reaching his hand over to mine and entwining our fingers.

I chuckled. "That’s the same thing El said this afternoon, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me."

We pulled up to my house and he walked me to the door.

"OK so this is the part where I spill my guts out to you and you do your best to understand the jumbled up mess that come out of my mouth." he said.

"OK" I chuckled.

"OK here goes nothing." he took a deep breath, “OK so like I said I really really like you and tonight only confirmed that and I think you’re a really cool person and you’re so down to earth and I love it and I know this is kind of fast but I was just wondering if maybe you would like to be my girlfriend I don’t know it just feels right to ask but if you don’t fee the same that’s fine and I totally understand and you can totally slap me in the face if you feel necessary." 

"I’m not going to slap you silly! And I would love to be your girlfriend. I know we’re moving fast but I get what your talking about, I’m usually not this easily comfortable around people, but I am with you." I replied.

"I cannot believe that just worked out in my favor. I was really expecting a slap in the face." he said dumbfounded. 

I laughed a little. "Anyway. Good night." 

"Good night." he said as he leaned in and placed a soft kiss to my lips. 

I walked inside to find my dad and Julia in the same position as last night.

"Have a fun time?" Julia asked.

"Yeah. It was really nice!"

"Glad to hear you’re adjusting nicely." my dad chimed in as I was walking up the stairs. 

I stopped halfway up and turned around. "Hey Dad? Thanks for bringing me to London."


	4. Double Date

I woke up the next morning with a smile on my face. I was Zayn Malik’s girlfriend. I rolled over and came face to face with the wall covered in 1D posters. It was creepy. I was a fan yes, but at least I never covered my walls in posters. Sure I reblogged photos, but that’s just because they were good photos, or had a funny comment, and the fan fiction, well that was just FICTION I didn’t actually think it would happen. Lacey, however, really believed that it was possible for one of them to fall in love with her. I guess I sounded a little hypocritical, what with my current situation with Zayn, but I was only 1 year younger than him, she was 6 and she was underage, I mean let’s get real here she didn’t really have a chance. I checked my phone to see I had two texts. 

 

One from Zayn: GOOD MORNING BEAUTIFUL HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY IM IN THE STUDIO ALL DAY BUT ILL TALK TO YOU TONIGHT? 

The other was from El: YOU’RE COMING OVER AND YOU’RE TELLING ME EVERYTHING!!!! 

I didn’t bother responding to the one from Zayn he was probably already busy in the studio and I’d talk to him later. But I did respond to El’s 

TELL ME WHEN 

I quickly got a response from her: NOW!! 

I hopped out of bed and got dressed before heading downstairs to find the house empty as it had been yesterday. I grabbed my purse and typed out a response to El saying that I would be there soon and rushed out the door. Ten minutes later I was knocking on her door. It flung open and I was yanked inside. 

"So? What happened?" She urged. 

"Oh my gosh it was perfect! He was such a gentleman opening doors for me; he even pulled out my chair at the restaurant!" I squealed. 

"Oh how sweet!" 

"I know right!" 

"OK OK so what else? what did you do? what did you talk about?" 

"Well we only went to dinner, but it was about three hours long because we talked so much. He told me a lot about his family and oh my gosh you should see the way his face lights up when he talk about his sisters, he’s so sweet and you can tell he loves them a lot!" 

"Oh that’s so sweet! So is he a good kisser?" 

"I wouldn’t know…I don’t have anyone to compare him to." 

"Oh my gosh he was your first kiss?" 

"Yeah…and now he’s my first boyfriend!" 

"What!? Why did you wait to drop this bombshell? That should have been the first thing you mentioned when you walked in this door!" 

"Haha sorry!" 

"I’ll give you a pass this time!" She joked. “So how did he end up being your boyfriend like how did he ask?" 

"Ok well when he walked me to my door he was all like ‘OK so this is the part where I spill my guts out to you and you do your best to understand the jumbled up mess that come out of my mouth’ and then he went on to say how he really liked me because I was really down to earth and he knew we were moving fast but it felt right and that he really wanted me to be his girlfriend but if I didn’t want to that was fine." 

"And you said? Well yes obviously but how?" 

"I said that I knew what he was talking about, that it just felt right. How I was comfortable around him when that was usually really hard for me so I would love to be his girlfriend." 

"That’s really cute!" 

"Shit what time is it?" I said realizing I had lost track of time how long we’d been talking. 

"About 11 why?" 

"Sorry I just have to take my pill." 

"Pill?" 

"My chemo pill, I’ve had to take it ever since I stopped chemotherapy, if I don’t take it at the same time everyday my body starts to react badly." 

"You had cancer? 

"Yeah, when I was thirteen." 

"What kind of cancer?" 

"Ovarian." 

"Wow you’ve been through a lot." 

"Yeah, like I told Zayn last night that’s kind of why I lost all of my friends and eventually tried to kill myself." 

"Ok so I have another question about your suicide attempt, if you don’t mind me asking." 

"No go ahead, that’s what I like about you and Zayn you’re not walking on eggshells around me." 

"But wouldn’t you want us too? Like wouldn’t that show that we care? That we don’t want to upset you?" 

"I tried to kill myself because I didn’t feel loved; you don’t keep something you love so carefully that it never gets hurt." 

"But don’t you?" 

"Little kids don’t love the toy that has to stay in the box, or has to be kept carefully, they love the toy that they can take anywhere, they’re the ones that end up dirty and missing an eye or an ear." 

"Wow I think you’re more poetic than Zayn, but I guess you have a point!" 

"Anyways, what was your question?" 

"Why slit your wrists? I don’t see any other scars so it’s not something you did regularly, so why not something less painful? Like sleeping pills or something?" 

"Because I thought no one would be able to save me this way. If I took pills and my mom found me she would take me to the hospital and they’d pump my stomach and everything would be fine. Blood loss is harder to counteract." 

"Then why not shoot yourself or something faster than bleeding out?" 

"I guess part of me was hoping that someone would save me." 

"Well clearly someone did." 

"Not really, there happened to be a woman out jogging that heard me scream in pain, she called the police, thought someone was attacking me." 

"Well then it was fate, it was all so you could come here and meet Zayn! And you could fall happily in love and get married and have babies and live happily ever after!" 

"If you say so" I chuckled 

"I do say so! I’m getting hungry, want to grab some lunch?" 

"Chinese sound good?" 

"Chinese sounds great!" 

"You’re not that hard to please are you?" 

"Not really no. I’m just grateful to have a friend to go to lunch with." 

Eleanor and I spent the day together and we were both informed that we were going on a double date tonight. El and I rushed back to her flat to get ready and just as we were putting on the finishing touches on the boys arrived to pick us up. 

The night went smoothly. I was already super comfortable with Zayn and Eleanor and I wasn’t exactly uncomfortable with Louis. They took us to dinner and then ice cream, which we ate while we walked around the park. Zayn and I decided to lie down and look at stars while Louis and Eleanor continued walking. I laid down and shimmied closer to Zayn, resting my head on his chest while his arm was splayed over my shoulders. 

"Aren’t they just beautiful?" I asked 

"Not as beautiful as you," he responded cheekily. 

"Do you ever wish you could just magically fly off into space and land on a star? See what kind of world it holds?" 

He chuckled “Are you a fan of ‘The Little Prince’?" 

"Yeah it’s my favorite book" I laughed. “My dad got it for me when I was little, and he wasn’t around much after he moved to London and I didn’t remember him that much, but I remembered him giving me that book and reading it with me, so I taught myself how to read with that book." 

"You taught yourself how to read?" 

"Yeah I really wanted to read the book again, but I didn’t want to do it with my mom because it was something between me and my dad, and I wanted it to stay that way. So I would stare at the pages trying to remember what happened in the book and figure out what the words were, when I thought I had it figured out I would take it to my mom and read it for her and she would correct me when I was wrong. I got better with every chapter and eventually I didn’t have to remember what happened because I could just read it." 

"That’s pretty cool!" 

"Yeah I guess." 

"So you and El are pretty close huh?" 

"Yeah she’s super nice and it’s nice to have a girlfriend to hang out with." 

"I’m glad you two are friends." 

"I didn’t realize I needed your approval!" I joked. 

"That’s not what I meant it came out wrong! I just meant that I’m glad you’re fitting in and making friends." 

"Ok dad!" I replied sassily. 

"Ok I’m just going to stop talking now!" 

"Sounds like a good plan!" I giggled. 

"I should probably be getting you back home" he sighed. 

"Noo! I don’t want to leave yet! This is perfect!" 

"Well I would say you could spend the night at mine but I’m sure your folks wouldn’t like that too much!" 

"Actually…they did kind of imply that it was ok if I stayed out all night as longs as I let them know not to expect me home." 

"Well would you like to spend the night with me?" 

"If that’s ok with you" I asked nervously and bit my lip. 

"I think that would be lovely." 

Zayn helped me up and we got into his car to head to his flat. As we drove I typed out a quick text message to my dad telling him I wouldn’t be home tonight and not to worry about me. He replied with a ‘thanks for letting me know’ and that was the end of it. 

"I just want you to know that I don’t expect anything tonight, there’s no pressure or anything, we don’t even have to sleep in the same room, I just want you to be comfortable" he said as we entered his flat. 

I snorted. “Thanks…I kind of already knew you wouldn’t pressure me into anything, but if I was so uncomfortable that I would prefer to be in separate rooms I probably wouldn’t have asked to spend the night. I want to cuddle tonight." 

"I think I can manage cuddling." 

The next morning I woke up with Zayn’s arms wrapped around me playing the part of the big spoon. I felt tiny in his arms, and safe, like nothing could get to me. I wriggled around in his grip to face him and his eyes peeked open. 

"Morning" I said cheerily. 

"Morning" he mumbled, “sleep well?" He asked pulling my in closer to him. 

"Yupp! You?" 

"Horribly, I couldn’t stop thinking about the beautiful girl next to me." 

"You’re insufferable."

"But you like me!"

"Unfortunately" I joked. 

"Want some breakfast?"

"Eh, can we just stay in bed a little longer?"

"Oh my gosh Elena Anderson! Did I just hear you turn down food!? I think it’s a sign of the apocalypse!" 

"Hey now, I’m not that bad!"

"Oh but you are! You could give Niall a run for his money!" I buried my face in his chest out of embarrassment. He brought his head down and placed a kiss on my temple before whispering, “But I love it, it’s kind of sexy."

I didn’t say anything I just wrapped my arms around him tighter and listened to his heart beat. I was perfectly content; I could stay like that all day.

"Can I ask you something?" he asked as his fingers ran through my hair.

"Anything! You know that."

"Well it’s just…we have an interview today…and they generally ask us about girlfriends and such…and I don’t want to sound like an ass, but would you mind terribly if I dodged the question? Like I wouldn’t outright lie and say that I’m single, I just wouldn’t mention you…"

I chuckled a bit…he was so nervous about it and it didn’t really matter. "That’s fine, as comfortable as I am in London I don’t think I know it well enough to be comfortable being mobbed by paparazzi."

"I don’t think you ever do get comfortable with being mobbed by strangers though."

"That’s because you didn’t grow up in a big city. As long as I know where I am I don’t mind crowds."

"Yeah, but sometimes the fans and the paps can say some really mean things."

"So does every New Yorker known to man. Don’t underestimate me!"

"I’m not!"

"Oh I think you are, but I’ll let it slide."

"So you’re sure you’re OK with this?"

"Yeah. Besides my sister is a massive one direction fan and judging by the posters on her wall, you are her favorite, and I would much rather see her face when she see us together in person than in a magazine or hearing about it in an interview."

"That’s just mean!"

"She is fourteen; she needs to realize that she does not stand a chance with any of you. Besides she’s always glaring at me, I’m pretty sure she hates me, and when she learns that I’m friends with her favorite band she’s going to wish she wasn’t so rude and I really want to see that realization on her face."

"OK. C’mon, let’s go get some breakfast."


	5. Interviews and Dinners

Zayn made breakfast for the two of us, and by made I really mean he put bread in a toaster and poured cereal into a bowl, and then took me home before heading off to get ready for his interview. When I walked in my house Lacey was in the living room eating a bowl of cereal and watching the TV.

"Where have you been?" she mumbled with her mouth full.

"I had a date last night and I ended up spending the night at his house."

"Yeah ‘cause a guy would totally want to spend the night with you" she muttered under her breath, but I still heard it. I did my best to just shrug it off. "So is it getting serious with this guy?" she asked trying to sound interested.

"I mean I think so, he asked me to be his girlfriend." she nearly choked on her cereal.

"After two dates!?" she practically screamed.

"Actually he asked me after our first date." I smiled and walked away triumphantly. As I was walking into our room, my phone vibrated. I checked caller ID and saw that it was El.

 

"Hey what’s up?" I answered.

"You spent the night with Zayn!?" she practically screamed through the phone.

"Yeah…..but how do you know that…" I asked cautiously.

"Zayn told Louis and Louis told me! But why didn’t you tell me?" I sat on the bed to continue the conversation with her and Lacey walked in to get her laptop.

"Well let’s see, probably because I just got home and before that I was kind of busy with him." I said not wanting to mention Zayn’s name. 

"Well that’s no excuse! Tell me everything!"

"Well there isn’t much to tell."

"What do you mean there isn’t much to tell? You spent the night with Zayn! In his apartment! Alone! Spill!"

"NO!"

"Do the walls have ears or something?"

"Or something"

"Well then get your ass over here so you can speak freely."

"OK OK let me just change first, I’ve already done the walk of shame once this morning."

"OK see you in a bit."

Lacey had left the room by now but I still wanted to hang out with El so I changed quickly into a zebra tank top, some black leggings and some white ballet flats before heading downstairs. Lacey stopped me as I was reaching the door.

"You just got home and you’re already going out again?" she asked dumbfounded.

"Yeah, that’s what friends do, they hang out." I replied sassily as I walked out the door. Ten minutes later I was walking into El’s flat.

"So how did you end up spending the night together? What did you do? Did you have sex?" she squealed excitedly.

"OK well first of all no we didn’t have sex; I’ve been on two dates with the man! All we did was cuddle."

"Aww. How cute! But how did you end up there like was it his idea or yours?"

"I think we kind of both thought of it. He said that he should get me home and I complained and then he made a joke about me sleeping over and was like well…actually….and then somehow we kind of just decided that I was going home with him."

"That’s it?"

"Yeah that’s it."

"And you didn’t have sex?"

"We didn’t have sex."

“Why not? Lou and I did!”

“El!”

"Did you at least fool around?" She asked exasperated

"No. We just cuddled."

"Well what fun is that!?"

"El I’ve only known him three days!"

"Yeah yeah whatever. So how are things on the sister front?"

"Well she caught my walk of shame this morning. She asked me where I was and when I told her I spent the night with a guy she goes ‘yeah because a guy would totally want to spend to the night with you’ and I swear I could’ve killed her right then."

"Ugh! She sounds horrible."

"Oh she is! Why do you think she’s in my phone as the evil step-sister from Cinderella?" I laughed.

"Maybe she just needs time to get used to you, maybe it’ll get better." she offered.

"Yeah, maybe."

Just then my phone rang; it was my dad so I had to pick it up.

"Sorry, it’s my dad, I’ll be quick." I said before walking down the hall to take the call.

"Hey dad what’s up?

"Hey I know you’ve been hanging out with your friends a lot so I just wanted to let you know that Friday night I’m having a business dinner at the house."

"OK so are you saying that I need to be there or not be there?"

"Well actually the clients that I’m meeting with are around your age so I was hoping you could be there and maybe charm them a little more than I can."

"Yeah sure." I chuckled.

"OK thanks, I’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing."

I walked back into the living room to join El. She looked at me weird, like she just saw someone kick a puppy.

"El…? What’s going on…?”

"Did you check twitter?"

"I don’t have a twitter."

"So you don’t know?"

"Know what?"

"About the interview?"

"El just spit it out!"

"It’s just, everyone is saying that Zayn said he was single and he’s fair game." she finally blurted out.

I just laughed, “El, it’s fine, we talked about it."

"What?"

"Yeah, this morning he asked me if it was ok if he kept my name out of interviews for now, he wouldn’t say he was single he just wouldn’t mention me."

"But the fans-"

"The fans will say anything to convince themselves that they have a shot."

"I guess you have a point there."

"God you should have seen your face, you look like someone just killed your puppy."

"Well in my defense you are like my puppy and I did think someone hurt you!"

"You are so weird."

"So are you." she scoffed.

El and I hung out most of the day until Louis and Zayn stopped by. Louis to hang out with El and Zayn to pick me up. Before Zayn and I left Louis asked me to go shopping with him for El’s birthday, apparently the guys weren’t much help and he wanted a second opinion, I agreed and then left with Zayn.

"What’s the plan Stan?" I asked cheerily as he started the car and began to drive down the road.

"The plan is that I take you to my flat and then I cook you dinner."

"You can cook?" I asked skeptically.

"Yes!" he shouted defensively.

"Are you sure?"

"Harry’s been giving me lessons."

"Mhmm." I replied sassily.

"You just wait, I’m going to make a fabulous dinner and you’ll be eating your words."

"Yeah OK." I replied sarcastically 

About an hour later I sat in his living room flipping through channels on the TV while he “cooked" dinner in the kitchen. Curses and expletives left his mouth while the clanking and banging of pots and pans rang out against the walls, I could tell it wasn’t going well, and when the smoke detector started going off I knew we were done. I walked into the kitchen to see if I could help and I saw Zayn staring at a very burnt…something…with a sad puppy dog face.

"Ohh. Babe." I started as I walked over to him, he just looked at me. "I’ll go order a pizza."

"I really tried." he pouted.

"I know babe. I know." I said patting him on the back. 

I ordered a pizza and it was no big deal but Zayn felt really bad that he ruined dinner; I just kept telling him that he didn’t ruin anything and that this was fine, as El had concluded, I wasn’t a hard girl to please. We cuddled on the couch and watched movies together. Eventually I fell asleep in his lap and I felt him carry me up to bed. He climbed in next to me and I fell back asleep in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is so boring, it’s kind of just a filler to help things move along. let me know what you guys think!


	6. Shopping with Lou

I woke up the next morning wrapped in Zayn’s arms as always, it was starting to become habit. He was already awake and had been watching me sleep. He looked at me with his caramel colored eyes like I was the most precious thing in the world and I loved it, it made me feel special, wanted; something I never thought I would feel in a million years. 

"What time is it?" I mumbled against his chest.

"About nine." He cooed into my ear.

"I should probably get going then…" I groaned as I stretched my body.

"Noo" he whined as he pulled me in and held me tighter.

"I told Louis I would meet him at eleven and I still have to go home and shower.

"You can shower here, I have one."

"Yes but I would still have to go to my house for clothes."

"I have those too!"

"Zayn, I actually have to look nice today, while I’m out I’m going to meet with the manager of the store I’ll be helping, I can’t exactly show up in an old t-shirt and sweats of yours, I have to look like I know what I’m doing."

"What store that you’ll be helping? What?"

"There’s a store downtown that sells Vera Wang evening wear and their sales are a little low so Vera has been talking about pulling her line from their store but she wants me to try and whip them into shape before she does, she wants to give them every opportunity she can because they’ve worked with her for years."

"If she’s worked with them for years then why is it a problem all of a sudden, shouldn’t she have walked away awhile ago?"

"The store just went under management change, the parents passed away and now the son manages the store and he doesn’t know what he’s doing so sales have plummeted."

"How did you get elected for this job?"

"I helped a store in San Francisco that was having the same problem."

"Ok…well why did you help the store in San Francisco?"

"Because Vera asked me to."

"How do you know Vera?"

"Her company is based in New York I did an internship as her assistant one summer and she hired me on as her first assistant after the internship was over."

"So you have a job here now?"

"Yeah, that’s the great thing about working in the fashion industry, no matter where you go in the world, you always have a job. Now I really have to go."

"Fine." He huffed.

I stood up and gave him a quick kiss before I rushed out the door to get home. When I got there, no one was home, so I didn’t have to deal with Lacey’s attitude today. I took a quick shower because I knew that picking out an outfit would be difficult. I had to find something that was casual enough for a day of shopping, but professional enough to meet with the new manager, while still looking cute. I finally decided on a black and white dress with red trim and some black ballet flats. An hour and a half after I got home I was rushing out the door to meet Louis at the cafe we decided on. When I walked in he was already there.

 

"Hey, sorry I’m a little late."

"You’re only one minute late."

"Yeah but in my world, five minutes early is on time and on time is ten minutes late."

"That doesn’t make sense."

"Well it does to me."

"But how can you go from being on time to ten minutes late in a matter of five minutes?"

"Because you just can. What were you thinking about getting El?"

"Well I have something picked out at a jewelry store I’m just having second thoughts about it and I would like your opinion."

"Yeah no problem."

"Do you want to grab lunch first and then I can show you?"

"Sure sounds great."

We ordered food from the cafe and Louis brought up the topic of family.

"So you have five siblings?" he asked.

"Yupp." I confirmed.

"You’re the oldest right?"

"Yeah."

"Do they get on your nerves all the time?"

"Only the snotty 14 year old."

"Yeah I get that." he laughed.

"Yeah but you grew up with your sisters, I didn’t even know my siblings existed until I walked into their house."

"What?"

"Yeah my dad never told me about them."

"That’s crazy."

"Yeah well seeing as he was still with my mom when my first three siblings were born, I can understand why he never said anything."

"So they aren’t like step siblings? They’re actually related to you."

"Yupp. They’re all my half siblings. My brother was born when I was 2 my sister when I was 4 my other brother when I was 6 and my dad didn’t leave my mom and I until I was 8."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"How do you feel about that?"

"You sound like a therapist." I laughed.

"Sorry. But seriously, what do you think of that?"

"Well it didn’t really hurt when I thought he had just left us but now that I know he straight up chose another family over us, it kinda hurts, and I can’t really voice any of that because I have to share a house with him, it’s not like I can just leave."

"That sucks. But at least your dad came back into your life because he was worried about you."

"I honestly don’t think it had anything to do with being worried about me, he hasn’t paid a speck of attention to me since I got here and hasn’t cared that I’ve been spending every night out. I think he just wanted to stick it to my mother and show that he’s a better parent."

"Well then you just have to show him how fabulous you are and show him that he should’ve paid attention to you a long time ago."

"Thanks."

We finished eating and paid our bill before heading to the jewelry store to see the present he was thinking about getting El. We walked in and he went straight to the necklace he wanted to get. It reminded me of the necklace Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

"What do you think?"

"Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"She’ll hate it."

"Wow don’t spare my feelings or anything."

"Sorry but you’re overdoing it, stop trying so hard. Just look around and when you see something that makes you think of her, get it."

"But-"

"Look around!"

He stopped when he came to an emerald necklace that was much simpler than the other but still had a wow factor.

"What about this?" he asked holding it up.

"Much better, simple but beautiful, much more El’s style." I responded.

"Thank you for helping me."

"No problem."

"Do you mind if I head out so I can spend the rest of the day with El?"

"Go for it!"

He left and I went to meet with the manager of the store I was going to help while I was in London. It wasn’t as bad as I had expected, he just didn’t know how to keep records that well and wasn’t that good of a salesman. But those are things that can be taught so it should only take a few days before the store is in shape again. When I was done I decided to surprise Zayn by stopping by. I knocked on his door and I could hear him rushing around the flat to try and get to the door, there was a loud bang and a string of curses before the door flung open.

“Hey!” he smiled.

“Are you ok?” I asked concerned.

“Yeah just stubbed my toe on the coffee table. What are you doing here? I thought you were shopping with Lou.”

“I was but he already knew what he wanted to get El he just needed some guidance in the right direction. Then he left to go hang out with her.”

“So you decided to stop by?”

“Yeah, I figured we could have an afternoon quickie.” I said with a wink as I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him softly. His eyes widened as I pulled away. “I’m kidding relax.” I said as I moved away and plopped down on the couch.

“Good.” He sighed in relief. “I don’t exactly want our first time together to be rushed.” He said as he sat down next to me.

“No?” I feigned surprise.

“No. I want it to be special, just like you.” He replied wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close to his chest.

“Look at you getting all sappy.”

“Shut up.” He chuckled.

“So what are we watching?”

“I was watching a football match but we can change it.”

“No it’s fine, continue watching.”

“Really? You’ll watch a football match with me?”

“Yeah. I mean I can’t promise to enjoy it or even pay attention but by all means continue watching.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

A few hours later the match was over and Zayn turned off the TV.

“Dinner?” he asked.

“Do you even have to ask?”

“Haha. Guess not. So you want to stay in or go out?”

“Stay in.”

“OK. Cook or order in?”

“Cook. But let me do it this time, we don’t want to burn the house down.”

“Hey now!”

“Just hush, and stay out of the kitchen.”

I scrounged up the ingredients to make some chicken with spinach, feta and red pepper sauce. It only took about 30 minutes to make before I was calling Zayn into the dining room. 

“Wow babe, this looks amazing! I had the stuff to make this?” He exclaimed.

“Yeah, I know it looks pretty and complicated but it’s one of the easiest things in the world to make and there’s only like five ingredients.” I explained.

“Well I never would’ve been able to make it.”

“Probably not, no.” I teased.

He just scoffed before sitting down at the table and eating. We talked a little more about his day and we ate some in silence. But it wasn’t an awkward silence, just comfortable. When we were done eating he insisted on cleaning up, saying that I cooked so he would clean and I had to sit and relax. I waited for him in the living room flipping through channels on TV. When he was done he sat down next to me and we cuddled for a little while before heading up to bed.

“OK so I have something for you.” Zayn said as we walked into the bedroom. 

“You have something for me?” I questioned.

“Yeah, it’s nothing big but it’s the thought that counts right?”

“Right! So where is it?”

“Top right hand drawer of the dresser.” He responded sitting on the bed.

“Do I have to find it or something?”

“Kind of yeah, open the drawer.”

I made my way of to the dresser and opened the indicated drawer finding it completely empty,

“Zayn, there’s nothing in here.”

“Exactly.”

“What?” I asked, now thoroughly confused.

“That’s your present.”

“Huh?”

“Oh my gosh, the drawer is your present, I’m giving you your own drawer!” He explained, slightly irritated at my confusion.

“”You’re giving me a drawer?” I asked as a smile crept over my face, this time I wasn’t confused, just shocked.

“Yeah, I mean you’re spending so much time here, I figured you could use a place to put your stuff.”

I leaped forward and flung my arms around his neck, attaching my lips to his to express my appreciation. The kiss was soft and sweet, yet passionate and heated. After a few minutes Zayn pulled away smirking.

“I take it you like your present?”

“I love it!”

I changed into one of his t-shirts to sleep in and he started to pull me into bed. I wriggled out form his grasp heading over to my discarded clothing and began folding it.

“What are you doing?” he chuckled.

“I’m folding my clothes to put them in my drawer!” I explained.

“Haha. You are so weird.”

“Yeah but you like it!” I winked.

“Yeah,” he sighed lovingly as he waited for me to come to bed.

I turned out the light and crawled into bed next to him snuggling my face into his chest. His arms wrapped around me and I felt like this was the best place in the world to be. My mind was drifting off to sleep and before I knew it my mouth was acting without my brain’s permission.

“I love you,” I sighed into his chest. My whole body tensed up as I realized what I had said. My heart raced and panic was starting to set in. What if he wasn’t ready to her that? How would he react? Did I just totally screw things up for myself? It wouldn’t be the first time. After what felt like a few minutes but was probably more like a few seconds he finally responded.

“Love you too.” He sighed pulling me in closer.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding and my body relaxed. I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal, he felt the same way. I had freaked out over nothing. I settled down and drifted off to sleep with a smile on my face, happy with the way my night had gone.


	7. The Dinner Disaster

I woke the next morning with an empty divot in the bed next to me, no Zayn. I sat up in bed confused; Zayn didn’t usually leave before I woke up. As I was about to get out of bed Zayn waltzed through the door with a breakfast tray in hand and a pile of pancakes stacked on top. 

"What’s this?" I asked amazed.

"Breakfast in bed," he responded.

"Did you make these?"

"Yeah."

"Imagine that, I wasn’t even woken up by a smoke detector."

"I’m never gonna live that down am I?"

"Not for awhile."

"Just eat."

"Gladly," I mumbled while stuffing my face with a bite of pancake.

We only had time to eat breakfast before he had to leave. He dropped me off first and when I walked in my dad and Julia were giving Lacey a lecture. I tried to slip by unnoticed but to no avail.

 

"Why doesn’t she get told all of this?" Lacey shouted with a large gesture in my direction. 

“She will we just haven’t had the chance. Elena can you come in here?" My dad asked.

"Hey what’s up?" I asked walking toward them.

"At the dinner tonight I need you to be mature."

"OK…" 

"I don’t want any fangirling, or-"

I cut him off with my snickering. "First of all, not really the fangirling type," (it was a lie but I was not going to be like Lacey), “secondly, I deal with celebrities in a professional capacity all the time; you don’t have to worry about me." At least the last part wasn’t a lie I did deal with celebrities all the time with my job in New York, I could at least hide my inner fangirling if I had to.

I went upstairs to change before heading out to meet with George, the new manager I was helping. As I was walking through the living room again trying to make it out the door unnoticed my dad stopped me.

"Where are you going? We need to prepare you for tonight." he stated confused.

"Sorry but it’ll have to wait I have to go to work."

"You’ve been here less than a week! How do you already have a job?" Lacey shouted.

"It’s the same job I had in New York; I’m just dealing with the London branch."

"You can’t push it back?" my dad asked hopeful.

"Unfortunately not. Look I don’t need to be prepped. I have professional dinners all the time, if there’s any specific information about your company I need to know then e-mail me, but now I really have to leave." and with that I walked out the door and headed downtown. I really needed to think about getting a car, and British driver’s license, all of this walking was starting to get tiring. 

I was out for a few hours. We had taken inventory of the entire store so it took awhile. When I got back it was around three, Dad’s clients would be over at five so I should probably go get ready. I took a long shower and went to go change. I could feel Lacey’s judgment as I got ready so when I was done I decided to get some work done while we were waiting for my dad’s clients, well potential clients. Lacey eventually wandered downstairs and not long after, the doorbell rang. I was trying to finish up the e-mail I was sending before heading downstairs, which resulted in Lacey, Julia and my dad all screaming for me. 

As I bounded down the stairs and into the living room I was met with five familiar pairs of eyes and one unfamiliar pair. Apparently my father’s potential clients were one direction, Louis had brought Eleanor and Liam had brought Danielle, I presumed, and Zayn was currently MIA.

"You’re missing one." I stated confused.

It wasn’t long before Lacey was muttering under her breath, “Bet that was hard to figure out."

It was ignored as Harry answered my non-question, “Yeah we assumed he was held up by his girlfriend."

"He doesn’t have a girlfriend; he just said so in your interview the other day." Lacey stated all knowingly.

"Actually he just said that there was no one worth mentioning yet." Liam chimed in.

I think Niall could see the slight hurt in my eyes after hearing those words so he tried to cheer me up. "Well, changing the subject, Elena, you’re looking fit this evening."

My compliment was cut short by Lacey’s mumbling, “Fit for a cow maybe."

I was trying really hard to let that one go but I was failing miserably, luckily El stepped in. "Elena, do you by chance have any chap stick? I left mine at home."

"Yeah, I have some upstairs." I said nodding towards the stairs.

We got up and walked to my bedroom and she closed the door behind her.

"I don’t really need chap stick." she stated.

"I figured."

"Don’t let her get to you."

"I know I know, it’s just hard sometimes, you know?"

"Didn’t you say she was a fan?"

"Yeah. Behold. The One Direction Wall of Creepiness." I said gesturing to her wall covered in posters.

"Oh. My. God."

"I feel like they stare at me while I sleep."

"She’s like mega-borderline-obsessive fan."

"Yeah, can you guess who her favorite is?"

"Zayn?"

"How’d you guess?"

"Oh I don’t know the multitude of Zayn posters with hearts and lip marks were a pretty good indication."

"She even says his name while she’s sleeping. It’s creepy."

"Well you know Zayn’s not gonna show any interest in her, not only is she only 14 but he’s also head over heels for you."

"I know. Oh my gosh I completely forgot to tell you!"

"What!?"

"I told Zayn I love him last night."

"Oh my god no way!"

"Yeah it kinda just slipped out as I was falling asleep."

"So!? Did he say it back?"

"Yeah," I squealed. Eleanor wasted no time joining in and jumping up and down with me. "Is it bad that I can’t wait to see Lacey’s face when Zayn says he loves me in front of her?"

"No. I think it’s only natural. Hell, I can’t wait to see it!"

"Listen, I’m actually kind of glad you’re here, I haven’t eaten in front of them before and I’m kind of uncomfortable with it at the moment."

"How have you never eaten in front of them?"

"Oh I don’t know. It might have something to do with the countless lunches with you and dinners and breakfasts with Zayn."

"Oh… right. Well you’ve eaten in front of us; you give Niall a run for his money, why can’t you eat in front of them?"

"Well, I’m comfortable with you guys. You don’t judge me and you treat me like you’ve known me for years, and you don’t walk on eggshells around me. All things I cannot say about Lacey, Julia and my father."

"Well don’t worry about it. Sit between Zayn and I, we’re here for you."

"Thanks."

"Alright, we better get back down there." 

As we were shuffled out of my room I could faintly hear Zayn’s voice and I got butterflies in my stomach. Of course when I walked into the living room the butterflies turned into a pit. There was Lacey less than an arm’s length away from Zayn with a flirty little smile and a flirty little touch to his bicep. My blood boiled and a hatred ran through my veins that could put Ursula to shame. Thankfully, El stepped in again.

“Hey Zayn, I see you’ve finally made it.” She said, distracting everyone, and I took the opportunity. 

I walked with conviction towards Zayn, confidence gained by the smile on his face, and threw my arms around his neck, pulling him in for a long and heated kiss. His hands rested on my hips and I jumped up slightly, wrapping my legs around his waist, never breaking the kiss. Unfortunately we were interrupted.

“Elena! That is no way to greet someone you don’t know! I expected this kind of thing from Lacey not you and you assured us you knew how to act in this sort of situation.” Julia shrieked.

Zayn had dropped me after the first syllable rang out from her mouth but he hadn’t let me go, he kept me close to his side as I buried my face in his chest. The rest of the group was trying hard not to laugh. I angled my face upward so that I could speak into Zayn’s ear.

“Can I introduce you as my boyfriend?” I whispered.

He tilted his head down to whisper in my ear, “I’d rather like to see the look on Lacey’s face.” He chuckled.

I turned around to face Julia and Lacey, who looked like she had witnessed a murder, before explaining myself. “Julia, this is my boyfriend Zayn.” I stated calmly.

“What!” for Julia it was more of a question, for Lacey it was a screech. 

“This is the guy I met at Starbucks, the one I’ve been going out with.” By this time my father had wandered into the room and picked up on our conversation.

“No! I won’t allow it!” My father bellowed in the most authoritative voice he could muster.

“Why not!” I shouted, angry again.

“You already tried to kill yourself over a boy once; I won’t have it happen again! You’re still recovering and he is…unpredictable.”

“I. Did not. Try. To kill myself. Over a guy.” I gritted through my clenched teeth. I took a deep breath before continuing my rant. “There were many reasons that I tried to kill myself, no one has just one reason, so maybe a guy was the tipping point, but there was a pile of precariously stacked incidents before that, they were just waiting for the right gust of wind to come crashing down. And yes, I am still recovering, but that doesn’t mean I don’t move on with my life, in fact if I just sit around trying to protect myself from the horrors of this world instead of facing them head on I will end up right back where I was before, the only way to recover, is to start a normal life and learn to deal with the heartache that comes with it. The fact is, you don’t know anything about me or my depression and you do not know what is best for me so don’t you dare try and tell me what is good for me and what isn’t.”

“I am your father I know what’s best for you.”

“Father? My Father? No! You’re Lacey’s father! You were never a father to me! You left us for this hoity toity picture perfect family and you cast my mother and me away like we were trash! I never even got birthday cards! You haven’t seen me since I was eight, and before that I was three! You don’t know what’s best for me! You don’t even know me! I bet Zayn knows me better than you do!”

“I highly doubt that!”

“Yeah? What’s my favorite candy?”

“Chocolate.” He stated with certainty.

“Zayn?”

“She hates chocolate, the only time she likes it is when she’s sick or she’s on her period. She hates candy so that’s really a trick question, but she can tolerate sour patch kids the most.” Zayn explained.

“So he knows what candy you like that doesn’t mean he knows you better.” My father challenged.

“Where do I work?” I asked

Silence.

“Zayn?”

“You work directly for Vera Wang; currently you’re helping a store downtown get back up on its feet.”

“What kind of father doesn’t even know where his daughter works? Not to mention the fact that you haven’t even shown the slightest interest in me since I got here.”

“You are still my daughter and you live under my house, if I say you can’t date him, you can’t date him!” He argued.

I stormed out of the room and went upstairs to pack an overnight bag with a few changes of clothes. My father was screaming after me but I wasn’t paying any attention anymore. He followed me into my room and kept unpacking my work, presumably trying to tell me that I couldn’t leave. However, he wasn’t putting anything back he was just laying it on the bed so I picked up the pile he had created and dumped it in my bag. I ran back downstairs and out the door, Zayn and El followed me, Louis followed Eleanor and everyone else followed him. Zayn finally got me to stop walking at the end of my driveway, shushing me and loading me into his car. I didn’t really know what was going on, I was just seeing red. So angry at my father, I think 19 years of anger towards him just spilled out in one conversation and it clouded my judgment. When we were back at Zayn’s flat, he carefully approached a conversation.

“Are you ok?”

I just nodded; finally numb from everything that had just taken place.

“This is probably a shit time to ask, but who was the guy he was talking about? You don’t have to answer I was just curious.”

“He was my boyfriend when I was diagnosed with cancer. He was the only one that came around when I was in the hospital, but he broke up with me the second a started to lose my hair and a week later he was fucking my best friend.”

“I’m so sorry.” He whispered as he pulled me into his chest. I curled up into a ball and ended up falling asleep like that, it was only six-ish but I had a long day and I was exhausted.


	8. Crushed

I woke up around ten at night still exhausted and still in Zayn’s arms.

“Sorry…” I mumbled pulling myself away from him as I realized that I had just trapped him for the past four hours.

“Nothin’ to apologize for babe,” he replied.

“I basically just held you captive for the last four hours.”

“No one was held against their will, I like holding you.”

“Good because I like being held.”

“Feeling any better?”

“Not really, I just let out 19 years of pent up emotional damage, I’m kind of wrecked.”

“Do you think food might help? We never did get to eat.”

“You never have to ask if I’m up for food. The answer is always yes!”

“What do you want? I could probably make something.” I just stared at him doubtfully. “Hey I made you breakfast” he defended.

“True. But let’s not push our luck” I replied patting him on the back.

“You’re probably right. So what do you want to order?”

“Doesn’t matter to me.”

“Ya know, ninety-nine percent of the time you’re easy going and don’t really care about anything, and then there’s that one percent where someone can say the wrong thing and you get all fired up about it and you’re like this completely different person.”

“Thanks? I think?”

“It’s pretty amazing.”

“So it was a compliment?”

“It was” he chuckled. “I’ll go order some pizza.”

Zayn got up to order pizza and I went to go freshen up. I took one look in the mirror and was repulsed; I looked like I had been run over by a steam roller. I splashed some cold water on my face to try and help but it didn’t really do much. I didn’t care though, I knew Zayn probably didn’t even notice, and in all honesty I probably looked worse the day I first met him. If he wasn’t disgusted then he wouldn’t be now. I went back into the living room and waited for our pizza. When it finally came I devoured most of it, as usual. For some reason when I was with Zayn, all of my body issues disappeared, probably because he looked at me as if I were a supermodel. When we were finished eating we went to bed and I curled into his arms. It was the only place that I felt truly safe, like nothing could hurt me.

The next day I woke up late and Zayn had already left, he had to go into the studio, so I called up El and made plans to meet up. I really needed some girl time after last night. I threw on some sweats before heading over to her flat. When I arrived her kitchen looked like she had stocked up for the impending apocalypse.

“OK! I have chocolate ice cream I have peanut butter cups I have chocolate chip cookie dough I have anything and everything for making a good ice cream sundae I have any candy you could possibly think of and then for when we get hungry and need actual food I have pasta. I figured you could use some comfort food” she explained as she pointed out things spread across her counters.

“Wow! This is…”

“Heaven?” she interrupted.

“I was going to go with great but heaven works to” I chuckled.

“So what do you want to drown your sorrows in first?”

“Ice cream.” I replied.

We made our ice cream sundaes and headed into her living room to talk.

“So how are you feeling?” She inquired.

“Like shit.”

“Yeah you kind of look like shit.”

“Gee thanks.”

“Well…”

“No its fine, I know I look awful.”

“So who was that boy your dad was talking about? Why does he think you tried to kill yourself over a boy?”

“He was my ‘boyfriend’ when I had cancer and he ‘broke up’ with me when I went bald and started dating my best friend a week later. It was kind of that last shovel of dirt that made the whole so deep I couldn’t get out. Really it only set things in motion but my dad thinks that I fixated on that for the years leading up to my suicide attempt.”

“OK…Why is boyfriend in air quotes?”

“We were twelve. We didn’t really actually do anything, he never even kissed me properly, it was middle school dating where you don’t actually do anything you just call him your boyfriend to be able to say that you have a boyfriend.”

“Ahh. OK.”

“Since I stopped talking to people when he broke up with me my father thinks that’s why I killed myself.”

“Wow your dad is really stupid…no offense.”

“None taken I would have called him much worse.”

“So I take it you stayed with Zayn last night?”

“Yeah we got to his flat and he held me and I fell asleep in his arms, and he just held me while I slept, for FOUR HOURS!!!”

“Four hours!? Marry him! I’m serious you can’t let that get away!”

“Haha. I’ll take it into consideration. I don’t think we’re ready for marriage just yet, but I do think that maybe we might be ready for something else…”

“Wait, are you saying that you’re going to have sex?”

“I want to yeah.”

“Oh my gosh when?”

“Well I was thinking tonight…but I need a bikini wax first.” I chuckled.

“Sweetie that’s fine, I know a place. We can get you some lingerie while we’re out.”

“Oh god, OK”`

“OK c’mon, let’s go. We’re done wallowing; we have something happy to focus on!”

And with that we were out the door and on a mission. She took me to a salon to get a bikini wax and then dragged me to the lingerie section of a boutique. She made me try on almost everything they had there. I felt like I was on display for the world and I was slightly uncomfortable, I had to remind myself that it was just El and I had no reason to be self conscious. She helped me decide on a simple black baby doll with lace from the breasts down the middle of the garment. It wasn’t much but it would get Zayn’s attention. We grabbed some lunch before heading back to her apartment.

“So how are you going to go about it tonight?”

“I don’t really know yet.”

“I think you should be in your lingerie waiting for him when he comes home. OOH! Or you should be like watching TV and like get up to go to the bathroom and come back in it and make him forget about whatever he was watching.”

“Haha. Oh my gosh! I’ll think about it!”

“Well you have to make an entrance and I better get a play by play tomorrow.”

“How about a quick recap?”

“With details of the major plays.”

“OK deal!”

“Need any advice before you go for it?”

“Thanks, but I’m good.”

“Are you sure? No last minute curiosities of how things really go down?”

“I know how sex works El.”

“In theory yes but you’ve never actually done it.”

“I never said that.”

“Elena, Zayn was your first kiss; you can’t expect me to believe that you’ve had sex.”

“Well…”

“You’ve never been kissed but you’ve had sex!! Please explain! Isn’t kissing kind of involved in sex?”

“When I first got out of the hospital after the cancer I had a mad at the world kind of wild phase where I made some pretty bad decisions.”

“OK but like I said, isn’t kissing involved in sex?”

“Never on the mouth; I kept it very Pretty Woman. That was too intimate, I also never took repeats. I was going through a rough time and it was my way of coping and lashing out at the same time. Pretty stupid I know.”

“Hey no judgment here.”

“Really? Are you going to tell me this is ‘safe place’ next?”

“Shut up! I’m just trying to be supportive.”

“I know.”

“Changing the subject, when are you going to talk to you dad?”

“I don’t really know, not today he still needs time to calm down, so do I. If we’re going to have a conversation we both have to be calm otherwise it’ll just be a repeat of last night.”

“I agree. The two of you need to actually talk through some things, it’s not exactly something that can be patched up with the ‘I’m Sorry’ band-aid.

“Yeah, I just hope we actually can.”

“Well I mean he might not get it when you talk to him, you might need to talk to him and then let things sit for awhile.”

“Yeah…”

“OK you need to go. The boys will be going home soon and you need to be there when Zayn gets there and even if you’re not going with my idea you still need to leave because I would like to have sex with my boyfriend when he gets here and I can’t do that with you here, so, out you go” she rambled as she pushed me out the door.

I headed back to Zayn’s flat and put my new baby doll in my drawer. I knew that if he saw the bag his own curiosity would ruin the surprise. I threw the bag away before rummaging through his kitchen to find items to make something suitable for dinner. I found things to make some pasta and quickly got to work. Within 20 minutes I was putting dinner on the table and I ran upstairs to change into the baby doll. I originally hadn’t planned on going along with El’s plan but the more I thought about it the better it sounded. I had changed and was halfway down the stairs when I heard the door open, but it wasn’t Zayn’s voice that I heard it was a woman’s. I quickly ran back upstairs and scrambled to change back into my clothes before heading back downstairs. When I walked into the living room and said hello they both stopped and stared.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be here.” Zayn awkwardly broke the silence.

“I-uh-figured you would hurt yourself trying to make dinner so I decided to make it for you.” I replied.

“Uh-well-this is my mom, mom this is my friend Elena.” Zayn introduced us. It was that word that really got me speechless, friend. I understood lying to the media…but his mother? I felt like a knife had been jabbed through my chest and I lost all ability to breath.

“Well-uh-it looks like you’re in good hands so I’m just going to go…”

“You don’t―”

“No it’s fine; you should have a nice dinner with your mom. I made pasta it’s-uh-on the table.” I picked up my jacket and raced to the door against my tears. I made it all the way out of the apartment building and hailed a taxi before the flood gates finally opened.

I hated feeling like this, I felt like I wasn’t in control and that wasn’t OK with me. I had the taxi drop me off at the nearest pub. I lost track of how many drinks I had, but I didn’t really care, I just wanted to forget what had happened, the fight with my dad and Zayn calling me a friend on top of it. He asked me to be his girlfriend, not girl friend, one word not two, certainly we were more than just friends, why wouldn’t he want his mother to know about us, was he ashamed of me or something? Eventually the bartender cut me off so I hailed a taxi as best I could. When I got in I didn’t know where to tell the driver to take me. I couldn’t go home and I couldn’t go to Zayn’s. I didn’t really want to interrupt Louis and El. So I gave him the only other address I knew, Harry’s.


	9. White Girl Wasted

I stumbled up the stairs that led to Harry’s flat and searched for his door. I took a deep breath before gingerly knocking. A few moments passed so I decided to knock again, this time louder. A few more seconds passed before the door swung open to reveal a worried Harry. 

“Elena what’s wrong? It’s almost midnight.” He asked in a mixture of concern and shock.

“Do you think I could crash here tonight?” I asked in a shaky breath.

“Uh-yeah come in.” he said as he moved aside to let me in. He led me to the couch and sat me down before asking “Why here?”

“I can’t go home.” I slurred.

“What about Eleanor’s?”

“She’s having sex with Louis.”

“Why can’t you stay with Zayn?”

“Because he’s with his mom,” I explained, “and I’m just a friend.” I sobbed into Harry’s shirt.

He shushed me and rubbed my back as if I were an infant in need of lulling to sleep. The tears finally stopped pouring but a wave of nausea hit me. I felt like my stomach was doing flips and my face started to get hot.

“I don’t feel so good.” I mumbled.

Harry led me to the bathroom and I no sooner reached the toilet when I began to empty the contents of my stomach into the bowl. As I continued to vomit tears began to stream down my face again. I probably looked like a wreck but I couldn’t care at this point. I felt Harry pull my hair back and the cool air hit the back of my neck as I began my second round of vomiting. When I was finally done I didn’t have the energy to move from my position lying on the floor hugging the toilet. 

“No one loves me,” I sobbed, “why doesn’t anyone love me?”

“I’m sure lots of people love you.” Harry responded in either sympathy or pity, I couldn’t tell which.

“No. No one does. My own parents don’t even love me.” I replied in a barely coherent babble of sobs and sharp inhales.

“That can’t be true.”

“But it is. My dad didn’t care for nineteen years and my mom just gave me up the second he asked, she didn’t even try to fight for me. The worst part is…I honestly thought Zayn loved me. But he didn’t, I’m just a friend.”

“You are a lot more than a friend to him.”

“Really? Because that’s all he told her, I’m his friend, and now they’re in his flat eating the pasta that I made for him so that I could have a romantic dinner with him, when all along I was just a friend!”

I broke down in sobs and Harry tried to say something again, but it fell on deaf ears I was too far gone to pay any attention to anything that wasn’t circulating in my head.

“How could I be so stupid? I should’ve known that he could never actually have feelings for me. He’s Zayn Malik for god’s sake! It was probably all just a game to him! See how fast he could get me hooked. A guy like him would never go for a girl like me, he’s perfect and I’m just a hot mess. It was probably just a joke to him; he’s probably laughing at me right now.”

“He’s not laughing at you.”

“Why doesn’t he love me?”

“He does love you.” Harry cooed.

“But he doesn’t,” I replied as I slumped myself across the cool tile floor, “that’s the problem.” I nearly whispered through a strangled sob as I drifted from the world around me and blackness took over.

*****

Elena had just run out of my flat leaving my mum and me standing in m living room. It was a little awkward for me…I wasn’t very clear on what had just happened. Had I done something? I was torn between running after her or not but I decided to give her some space. Girls like space when they’re upset right? In all honesty I was just taking a stab in the dark…I didn’t even know if she was upset. 

“So do you want some pasta then?” I asked trying to break the awkward tension that had been left in the room. “I can tell you from experience Elena’s a great cook.” I said trying to sound normal.

She just nodded and I went to the kitchen to make us some plates of food while she headed off to the bathroom. We ate in silence for an hour or so…well mum just sat there and stared at me while I ate. 

“So are you going to tell me or are you going to make me guess? She asked as her eyes bore into my soul.

“Tell you what?”

“Who that girl was.”

“I already told you. She’s my friend Elena.”

“Most friends aren’t offended and run out of the room emotionally when you introduce them to your mother. So. Who is she?”

I set my fork down and let out a deep sigh realizing that the eating portion of this meal was over.

“We’ve kind of been seeing each other.”

“How long?”

“About a week.”

“How serious is it?”

“Ah hell mum I don’t know.”

“Well you’ve got to have some idea of how serious it is.”

“Mum…”

“Is she in girlfriend territory?”

“I may have asked her to be my girlfriend yeah…” I trailed off.

“And you still introduced her as your friend? Not your girlfriend?”

“She said she was fine with hiding it for now.”

“Yes Zayn, but hiding it from the media and hiding it from your mother are two different things. She probably didn’t expect you to tell me she’s just a friend. Have you slept with her?”

“Mum!”

“I’m just trying to figure out how much damage you did here so you can fix it.”

“No. We haven’t slept together. That’s good right? I mean we can’t be too serious if we haven’t had sex right? I might not be in as much trouble for calling her my friend.”

“Zayn all I know is that she had dinner waiting for you when you got home and there’s a bag from a very expensive lingerie store upstairs. She was probably thinking that tonight would be romantic and you went and crushed all her dreams by calling her a friend.”

I dropped my head to the table in defeat. “I really screwed up didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.”

“Mum you’re not helping.”

“Then talk to me. Why did you introduce her as a friend?”

“I don’t know it just came out!”

“Yes but why? Were things not going well?”

“Thing were going fine between us. I even told her I loved her!”

“Did she say it back?”

“She said it first.”

“So why do you think you treated and introduced her as if she were a friend you barely talk to?”

“I don’t know. I guess…I guess it was just in my head. We had that interview and I was so practiced on calling her a friend if anyone asked about her that it just slipped out and seemed natural when I introduced you. Plus the media and the fans haven’t really noticed her yet so I keep waiting for people to start asking.”

“I think you need to fix this with her as soon as possible. Don’t wait around to try and make things right. You probably should have gone after her when she left.”

“But how mum? I’ve screwed this up so badly.”

My mum stayed a bit longer and gave me some good advice about how to talk to Elena. But it mostly boiled down to listen and be honest. When she left I did too, headed for Eleanor’s flat. I figured that Elena wouldn’t be caught dead going back to her dad’s and would probably want to talk to El anyway. After several minutes of knocking and yelling through the door a very irritated and very naked Louis opened the door.

“You’re interrupting” was all he said.

“Sorry, I was just looking for Elena.”

“I haven’t seen her since this afternoon. She said she was going to yours.” Eleanor said as she emerged from behind Louis in a robe.

“Yeah I think I screwed things up a bit.”

“How so?” Eleanor asked before inviting me in and telling Lou to go put some pants on who quickly found his boxers on the floor and slipped into them.

“I called her a friend when I introduced her to my mum.” I said sheepishly as I kept my gaze downcast.

“Oh Zayn.” They said in unison.

“I know! I Know! Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”

“Do you think she went home?” Louis asked.

“Louis she didn’t come here because she knew that we were having sex and didn’t want that awkwardness after what happened. I highly doubt she would go and face her dad. Besides she’s too upset with him, I wouldn’t be surprised if she never talked to him again.” Eleanor explained.

“I don’t know what to do now. How do I find her?”

“Why don’t you go home in case she comes back to talk. In the meantime try calling her.” Eleanor suggested.

“Yeah, she might just need some time to cool off and collect her thoughts.” Louis agreed. 

I headed back to my flat and slumped on the couch. I could tell she wasn’t here, it just felt…empty. I decided to try and call but there was no answer. I hung up and tried again, repeating the process for several minutes before letting some time pass. I called every ten minutes until finally I heard the click of the phone being picked up.

“Hello?” someone asked.

“Harry?” I asked confused.

“Yeah.”

“Where’s Elena?”

“She’s…uh…passed out on my bathroom floor. She was pretty drunk when she showed up, pretty upset too.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“Zayn, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. You won’t get anything accomplished; she’s too out of it.”

“I can at least bring her back to my flat.”

“Do you want to know why she’s on my bathroom floor? Because when I tried to get her into a bed or the couch even she fought back. I wasn’t even going to wake her, I was just going to carry her, but when I started to move her she bit me! Hard! I still have teeth marks. Besides,” he softened, “she’s out of it right now, every time your name was mentioned she just broke down and started balling her eyes out. Something about being your friend.”

“Fuck.”

“I take it you know what she’s talking about?”

“Yeah, I introduced her as my friend to my mum.”

“What?”

“Yeah and I broke her heart even more than it sounds like because she had a romantic evening planned. She made dinner for me, even bought lingerie. I feel like such an ass.”

“Well you kind of are.”

“Gee thanks!”

“Well…”

“No I know, I really screwed this one up.”

“If it makes you feel any better she really loves you, she wouldn’t be this upset if she didn’t.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better Harry! That only makes me feel worse.”

“But she loves you enough to forgive you if you talk to her.”

“Ya think?”

“Yeah, she just kept saying how she wanted you to love her; all you have to do is show her.”

“Thanks.”

“However, I don’t know if she’ll still feel this way in the morning of if she’ll even remember it, but she does think you were just playing her all this time. That you didn’t actually like her.”

“Oh God.”

“Look why don’t you just get some rest and I’ll call you when she wakes up.”

“Yeah, ok I guess, just take care of her will you?”

“Course, get some sleep.”

“Thanks.”

I hung up the phone and dragged myself upstairs and climbed into bed. But it just didn’t feel comfortable. Not without her tiny body wrapped in my arms snuggled into my side, her head resting on my chest and her breaths skating across my body, her foot rubbing back and forth on the mattress or my foot. I just wanted her here, to tell her that I was sorry and that I didn’t mean it, but mostly that I loved her. I hate that I hurt her like that. Eventually my thoughts faded as sleep washed over me and I clutched to my phone, waiting for Harry to call.


	10. Confrontation

I woke up to the cool sensation of the tile floor against my cheek. I pushed myself into a sitting position as I pried apart my sleep ridden eyes and took a look around. I was in a bathroom…Harry’s bathroom? How did I end up in Harry’s bathroom? What happened last night? Oh. That’s right. I’m a friend. I lifted myself off the floor and moved in front of the sink to look at myself in the mirror. I looked like I had been chewed up and spit out. The bags under my eyes were deep and dark, my make-up was speared down my face as if I had been in a Ke$ha video and my hair looked like it held a small bird’s nest. I splashed some water on my face to wipe off my day-old make-up and ran my fingers through my hair so I could at least look a little more human. I walked out of the bathroom and heard Harry in the kitchen so I went to investigate.

“Morning sleepy head!” Harry chirped.

“Morning.” I mumbled, “Why did I wake up in the bathroom?”

“Because that’s where you fell asleep.”

“And you just left me there?”

“Hey I tried to move you! You bit me!”

“I did not!”

“Yeah you did! I wasn’t even trying to wake you up! I was just gonna move you!”

“I’m sorry…”

“It’s fine. How do you feel?”

“Like shit.”

“Physically or emotionally?”

“Both. How badly did I make a fool of myself last night?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Vaguely. I remember what happened with Zayn and I remember crying into your toilet about how no one loves me.”

“That about sums it up.”

“Dear god. Can I go crawl in a hole out of shame now?”

“You’re fine. Don’t worry about it. We’ve all been that drunk at some point and I grew up with a sister, I’ve dealt with a broken heart before.”

“You’re too nice to me.”

“Nah. Do you want something to eat? I can make you something.”

“No thanks,” I said scrunching up my face in disgust, “my stomach isn’t up for that yet, maybe just some coffee.” 

“I can manage that.”

He poured me a cup and set it in front of me. I let the fumes waft up into my face and wake me up. I took a sip and the hot liquid rushed down my throat pulling the hangover from my body. 

“Zayn called.” He said breaking the silence.

I just stared at him. I didn’t know what to think about that. Between the hangover and the mental anguish I went through last night that had carried into the morning my brain was too scrambled to think straight. “Oh?” was all my brain could muster up as an answer.

“Last night. Your phone kept ringing so I answered it.”

“What did he say?”

“He wanted to know where you were and if you were ok. He knows he screwed up.”

“That doesn’t make it better.”

“I know but at least he realizes what he did wrong. I told him I’d call when you woke up but…”

“Can you not? I think I’d rather just go talk to him at his flat.”

“Wouldn’t you rather talk to him on neutral territory?”

“No. I’d rather him not have time to think about what he’s going to say. I want the truth not his closing argument on why I should forgive him.”

“Doesn’t that seem a little manipulative?”

“Maybe so but all is fair in love and war.”

“Just don’t be too hard on the guy.”

“Can’t make any promises.”

I finished my coffee and left his flat. It was only a ten minute walk to Zayn’s flat so I decided to walk so I would have time to clear my head. When I got to his door my heart started racing and my palms got sweaty. I took in a shaky breath to try and calm myself. I have to do this, I thought, I don’t want to but I have to. In a moment of confidence I raised my hand and knocked forcefully on the door. After a few long drug-out seconds the door finally swung open and the nerves hit again.

“Elena” he observed in shock. He looked horrible. His hair was a sloppy mess on the top of his head and his eyes were bloodshot with dark circles underneath them. 

“Can we talk?” I asked emotionless.

“Uh, yeah come in” he said as he opened the door further and stepped to the side to let me in. “I was worried about you last night, you weren’t at Eleanor’s and you never answered your phone, I think if Harry wouldn’t have answered it I would have lost my mind.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured you were worried when I noticed the 50 missed calls this morning.”

“Look I just want to say that I am so so sorry!” he said as if he were in anguish over how bad he felt but I had transitioned from heartbroken to pissed off and I needed more convincing.

“I’m listening.”

“I should have introduced you to my mum as my girlfriend and you don’t need to yell at me because my mum did enough of that last night but if you want to you have every right to.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I wasn’t expecting you to be here and I hadn’t been thinking about introducing you to my mum yet and I knew that we were going to keep it from the media―”

“But it was your mom not a reporter!” I cut him off.

“I know but I just had it in my head that if anyone asked I would call you a friend so when you were there with my mum it just came out and I didn’t realize and I’m really really sorry.”

My emotions had shifted again, I had moved on from being pissed and back to insecure and upset.

“What do you see in me?” I blurted out.

“What?”

“Why are you with me? You could have any girl in the world? Why me?”

“Because you saw me, not Zayn Malik international pop star 1/5 of One Direction, just Zayn, and you’re a beautiful person inside and out and you have been through so much and you’re still here you’re such a strong person and you’re everything I wish I could be. You know what you want and you don’t even let your father push you around, but it’s not like you’re some princess who always has to have her own way you’re easy going enough to usually go along with whatever other people want but you know when to draw the line for yourself. You’re a good person and you make me want to be a better person, to be the guy that you deserve.”

I looked into his eyes as he spoke trying to assess the truthfulness of his words. But as I gazed into his chocolate brown eyes I didn’t see the eyes of a stone cold liar or a skilled manipulator. I didn’t see the eyes of a predator reeling in its prey for the kill as I thought I would have. Instead I saw the eyes of a man so hurt by his own actions that he was willing to lay it all on the line to fix it. I saw the eyes of a man pouring out his heart and soul begging to be listened to. I saw the eyes of a man in anguish over the mistakes that he had made desperately trying to fix them because he honestly felt bad about it, and he honestly didn’t mean it.

My emotions flipped their switch again and I started sobbing hysterically for no apparent reason. Zayn rushed to my side and pulled me into his chest just before my knees gave out on me. He moved us to the couch and sat us down still holding onto me and rubbing small circles on my back. 

“Hey, why are you crying?”

“I don’t know!” I sobbed into his chest.

“Are they happy tears or sad tears?”

“I don’t know! Both? I don’t know!”

“How do you not know?”

“I just have a lot of emotions right now ok!?”He simply shushed me and continued rubbing my back trying to calm me down. When I finally stopped crying I took a deep breath and pulled away. “I just have some self esteem issues so when you called me your friend I took it as that being all you saw me as and I started beating myself up for thinking that you would ever want to be with someone as fucked up as me.”

“Hey, no, that was not it at all. I love you. I was just being an idiot. It had nothing to do with how I see you. I see you as my girlfriend, notice the girl in front of the friend. I just had word vomit. But I love you.”

“Good. That’s good. I love you too. Just don’t do that to me again.”

“I was thinking about it last night and I have a foolproof way to make sure that it never happens again.”

“Yeah but foolproof doesn’t necessarily mean Zaynproof.” I chuckled.

“Oh making jokes already? Someone’s feeling better.” He teased.

“Sorry tell me about this supposedly foolproof plan.”

“I figured we could come out.”

“Like out of the closet? Is that why you called me a friend? Because you’re not sexually attracted to me? You’re really in love with Niall aren’t you?”

“Ha. Ha. Ha. No! I was talking about us coming out as a couple but you knew that! You just had to be a little shit about it. I’m finally seeing that feisty side of you, I think I like it.” He smirked.

“So how would we ‘come out’?”

“I hadn’t thought about that! I could tweet it! I could do it right now tweet a pic of you and say you’re my girlfriend.”

“No. I look like shit right now I don’t need my picture taken. Why don’t we just wait for people to notice and when they start asking questions just answer them truthfully?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want.”

“Ok. So it’s settled. If anyone asks me who you are I’ll tell them that you are my wonderful girlfriend that I definitely do not deserve.”

“You are such a dork.” I giggled.

“Yeah but I’m your dork.” He replied.

“Yeah, I guess you are.” I said before I kissed him on the lips hard. Things were just starting to get heated when there was a loud knock on the door. Zayn got up and opened the door revealing my father, who had fire in his eyes.


	11. Confrontation Part 2

“You are such a dork.” I giggled.

“Yeah but I’m your dork.” He replied.

“Yeah, I guess you are.” I said before I kissed him on the lips hard. Things were just starting to get heated when there was a loud knock on the door. Zayn got up and opened the door revealing my father, who had fire in his eyes.

“What do you want?” I stated emotionless as I joined Zayn at the door and crossed my arms over my chest defensively. I was ready for a fight.

“For you to come home.” He sated as if it were the most obvious thing in the world and I was Karen from Mean Girls.

“Why would I do that?”

“Look whether you like it or not you agreed to live with me and you’re here on a visa because you’re my daughter and living with me. Therefore if you want to stay in the country you have to live with me.” He said triumphantly.

“Actually, when Vera gave me work to do here she made sure my visa was changed to a work visa. I can stay in the country as long as I’m working for Vera and I can live wherever I want. I won’t let you manipulate me.”

“I still don’t want you dating him” he said motioning to Zayn.

“Well it sucks to be you because whether you like it or not I am an adult and I don’t need your permission to date. And if you really think that I tried to kill myself over being rejected by one guy then you clearly don’t understand depression or anything I went through.”

“I am your father-“

“Yes technically you are my father but you’re really more of a sperm donor. You haven’t even tried to put any effort into getting to know me. Look you said that I have to follow your rules if I live under your roof and I respect that, however, I don’t have to live with you.”

“Yeah and where will you go? Do you even have a plan? Or will you just stay here and mooch off of Zayn?”

“One call to Vera and I can have an apartment by this afternoon.”

“Yeah? And how will you pay for that apartment?”

“When I had no friends and mom was never home because she was working her ass off to keep a roof over our heads after you left with everything I was working my ass off too. I took any hours I could just so that I had something to do and I wasn’t so alone. The best part about it is that because I didn’t have any friends to do things with I never really spent my money so I have a pretty hefty savings. Not to mention my salary is probably higher than yours.”

“So that’s it you’re just throwing away any chance of us having a relationship?”

“Don’t put this on me, you ruined any chance of us having a relationship when you left and didn’t come back for more than 10 years,” and with that I slammed the door in his face.

I turned on my heel and walked toward the kitchen swinging cupboards open.

“Do you have any alcohol here?” I asked still upset by my conversation with my father.

“Don’t you think that’s a bad idea I mean don’t you still have a hangover from last night?” he said a little wary.

I popped up from my crouching position I was in to peer into a cupboard. “I suppose that’s a good point. What do normal people do to burn off stem?”

“Work out?” he suggested.

“Ew.”

“Clean?”

“Double ew.”

“Then I don’t know what to tell you.” He said defeated.

“I want cookies. Do you want cookies?” I asked finally figuring out how to spend my extra energy.

“Sure there’s a bakery that makes some pretty good…”

“Why would we buy cookies?”

“You’re going to make some?”

“Yeah and I’ll even let you help. What kind of cookies do you want?”

“It doesn’t matter to me whatever you want.”

“Oatmeal raisin?”

“Sure.”

“They’re my favorite kind.” I beamed. “Ok so you have the butter and the salt…do you have brown sugar?”

“No.”

“Regular sugar?”

“No.”

“Eggs?”

“No.”

“Cinnamon?”

“No.”

“Flour?”

“No.”

“Baking Soda?”

“Yeah I think I have some of that in the fridge.” He said excited.

“Honey you can’t use that to cook with its old and will probably taste funny.”

“Oh…then no.”

“Do you have oats or raisins?”

“No.”

“Do you at least have a cookie sheet?”

“I think I might actually I think Harry left one here.” He dug around in a cupboard before pulling out a metal cookie sheet. “Tadaa!”

“Hey great! But we still have to go shopping for everything else.”

Zayn and I went grocery shopping and came back to bake the cookies together and I can’t remember the last time I had that much fun. We ruined the first batch of batter because we ended up in a food fight but we had fun so we didn’t really care when we had to clean up and start over. Surprisingly enough Zayn didn’t screw anything up. In the ten minutes they took to bake I called Vera about getting my own flat in London and a few hours later I got a call back from a realtor saying that she had several flats I could look at.

“So do you want to look at them with me?”

“Sure but I don’t know why you’re looking you’re more than welcome to stay here.”

I sighed. “I can’t say here with you. I love you and all but I have to be able to survive on my own. Plus you haven’t exactly seen me at my worst yet and I don’t know if you can handle that. For all I know I could move in with you and then everything could fall apart and I’d be exactly where I am now. I don’t want to rush our relationship, everything’s been moving kind of fast as it is and I’m ok with that but this might be a little too fast for me.”

“Ok. I can respect that but just so you know, I think I could handle you at your worst, I love you no matter what.”

“Aww. I love you too. Now up up we have flats to go look at.”

The realtor took up to about five different flats around the city all of which I had different reasons for not liking. The first one didn’t have enough closet space. The second one was too stuffy the third was too dingy in the lobby, the fourth one just had rude residents and the fifth one had too small of a kitchen. But the last one she took us to…was perfect. It had two bedrooms and a walk in closet the size of a small island. The kitchen was huge and the building looked clean. The best part was that it was about halfway between Eleanor and Zayn. It was completely empty but that just meant that I could splurge and get anything I wanted, especially for the kitchen. 

“I’ll take it!” I told the realtor.

“Perfect! I know the realtor selling the place we can have the paperwork drawn up by the time we make it to the office.” She announced.

We drove down to the office and signed the paperwork and they gave me the keys. 

“Ok seriously I think that flat is nicer than mine and you just like bought it like it was no big deal.” Zayn said shocked as we left the realtor’s.

“I said my salary was probably nicer than my dad’s…I wasn’t kidding.” I answered.

“I have to say when you told your dad that you could have an apartment by this afternoon I didn’t think it could really happen that fast.”

“The only reason I knew was because I saw people in New York do it all the time. If you have money things get done quickly.”

“I was just under the impression that you didn’t have that kind of money.”

“I just don’t spend my money on ridiculous and stupidly expensive things like you guys do.”

“We do not spend our money on ridiculous things!”

“Sure you don’t. Remind me, how many cars does Harry have?”

“So anyways, are we going shopping now?”

“Why would we go shopping?”

“Because you have nothing in your apartment.”

“Oh! No, El and I can go shopping tomorrow I was hoping to spend the night with you since you never got to see my surprise last night.”

“Would that surprise have anything to with the lingerie bag my mother found?”

“Oh god! ‘Cause that’s not embarrassing.”

“I don’t think she looked inside she just saw the bag.”

“Still. I can’t wear it now; all I’m going to be able to think about is your mother.”

“That’s ok, you’re already beautiful. Besides, I want our first time together to be about us, nothing else. I want to see you not some lacey material covering up your gorgeous curves.” 

He smiled and intertwined his fingers with mine as he continued to drive towards his flat. I hadn’t been nervous about it the other night but now my heart was racing and I had butterflies in my stomach as I anticipated the night ahead of us.


	12. Awkward Conversation

The ride back to his flat was only about fifteen minutes but it felt like a lifetime. My heart was racing and I could feel my palms start to get sweaty. I swallowed hard and tried to steady my breathing. I had been fine when I knew we were going to have sex, but after Zayn got all lovey-dovey on me I realized it wasn’t just sex this time, it would be more, there would be feelings involved, and that kind of scared me. 

“Everything alright babe?” Zayn asked snapping me out of my thoughts as we walked into his flat. 

“Yeah, fine.” I smiled.

“You sure?”

“Mhmm.”

“I don’t believe you. Something’s wrong…talk to me.” He said as he pulled me onto his lap on the couch. 

“I’m just in my own head and freaking out over nothing, it’s nothing I promise, I’m fine.”

“It’s not good to keep things bottled up, just talk to me, what’s going on in your head? Why are you freaking out?”

“You got really sweet in the car and now I’m just freaking out because of it and I know that it sounds stupid but now I’m all nervous.”

“What are you nervous about?” he asked softly.

“About having sex with you.”

“We don’t have to ya know. We can wait; I don’t want you to do something you’re not ready for.”

“That’s the thing I was ready I wasn’t nervous at all and then you said all of those sweet things in the car and now I’m nervous and I know that doesn’t make any sense because it should be the exact opposite I should be nervous and then not be once you say things like that but…I dunno…I guess I’m just weird. I don’t really know what’s going on in my head.” I rambled.

“Hey, shh, you’re not weird you’re just you, and I happen to like you. Have you ever had sex before?”

“Yeah…I’ve had a lot of sex but it’s always been meaningless hookups and I guess now that I realized its more than just sex I’m freaking out a little bit.”

“Why does the prospect of feelings with sex scare you?”

“Because everyone always leaves. So when I knew it was nothing and expected everyone to leave in the morning I wasn’t disappointed because it wasn’t anything to begin with. But if there are feelings involved it’s going to hurt when you leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know,” I sighed, “I’m just freaking out over nothing, thanks for being so patient with me, sorry you have to put up with me and my freak outs and my freak family and all of my insecurities, I really don’t deserve you.”

“It’s no problem babe, I love you.”

“Love you too.”

“Do you still want to have sex or do you want to wait?”

I thought about it for a second, but when I looked into his chocolate brown eyes filled with so much love and endearment I knew my answer. “I still want to have sex.” I said with certainty. 

“I want you to be sure so let’s not have sex tonight ok? Besides, I think we should talk about things a bit more.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like past partners, STDs, birth control…things like that.”

“I think they’re called STIs now.”

“Well whatever. Are you willing to talk about those types of things?”

“I am as long as you are as well and you don’t judge me for anything.”

“Promise.”

“Ok then, what do you want to know?”

“Why don’t we start with how many past sexual partners have you had?”

I took a deep breath bracing myself. “I’m not sure…I-uh…went through this period of rebellion where I had a lot of meaningless sex so I never counted and quite honestly I’d probably be ashamed of the number.”

“You have nothing to be ashamed for, it’s your body you can do whatever you want with it.”

“Thanks…so how many people have you been with?”

“Five. There was the girl I lost my virginity to, we had been dating for awhile and we decided we wanted to have sex and we wanted it to be special but it just ended up being awkward and a disappointment and we really weren’t ready for it. Then there were two one night stands and another girlfriend and then Perrie.”

“Oh ok.” I said in an effort to respond. I didn’t really know what to say to that, this whole situation was awkward enough and even though he said I shouldn’t be ashamed of my sleeping around the fact the he had only been with five women and only two of them were hookups while I had been with too many to count all of which were hookups made me a little uneasy. “Well we don’t have to worry about birth control; I don’t have a baby house anymore.” I said with a hint of melancholy in my voice.

“What do you mean you don’t have a baby house?”

“I had ovarian cancer and by the time they found it they had to remove my ovaries and because they were already taking my ovaries I told them to just take everything else as well so that I can’t end up with those cancers either. So I don’t have anything to make a baby or to house one.” I explained

“So you can never have kids?”

“Nope that option was taken from me when I was thirteen, but it’s fine, I can always adopt right?”

He just nodded unsure of what to say in response so he decided to change the subject instead. “Have you ever been tested for STIs?” he asked emphasizing the I in response to my earlier correction. 

“Yeah I would get tested every few months when I was having sex, I wasn’t completely reckless, but I’m clean, nothing to worry about there.”

“Same here.”

There was an awkward silence for a bit before he suggested watching a movie. He flipped through on demand to find a movie reading off the names as I made popcorn for us. 

“Pretty Village, Pretty Flame; Pretty Woman; Pride and Prejudice…” he read off quickly. 

“Wait what was that last one?” I asked

“Pride and Prejudice?”

“No the one before that.”

“Pretty Woman?”

“Yeah yeah yeah! Let’s watch that!”

“What’s it about?”

“You’ve never seen Pretty Woman?”

“No…”

“Oh my god, then we’re definitely watching it.”

“Well what’s it about?”

“It’s a romantic comedy about a second rate hooker.”

“That’s all you’re going to tell me?”

“Yeah! Anything else would be giving away the plot. Don’t worry it’s a classic!”

He shut up about it and just pressed play. Not that he would have opposed watching it anyway. We watched the movie together with me snuggled into Zayn’s side and before long the melodic voices of Richard Gere and Julia Roberts were putting me to sleep. I was already practically asleep on his lap but I was still trying to fight it in the delusional hope that I could actually win. Zayn slowly and quietly reached for the remote and turned off the TV.

“mmm. No I was watching I swear.”

“No you weren’t you were falling asleep.” He cooed

“But you have to see the ending.”

“Shh shh. I can watch it some other time.” He said as he picked me up and carried me to the bedroom. He laid me down in bed and I started to wake up due to the lack of body heat radiating off of him and his heartbeat no longer in my ear. After a few minute he finally crawled into bed next to me and I was able to fall back asleep cradled in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry its kinda short but I couldn’t think of anything else to put in this particular chapter. And sorry they havent had sex yet im having trouble writing their sex scene and I want to take as much time as possible on it so its perfect for the story and the characters. Anyways leave me feedback!! :)


	13. Devastation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: I did not research any of the medical information in depth so if it’s wrong sorry!

When I woke up Zayn was gone but there was a note on his pillow explaining he had to work. I made my way to the kitchen and found something to eat. While I was eating I checked my email and found a list of things Vera wanted me to do. The fact that I was three thousand miles away didn’t stop her from using me as an assistant, at least for things more important than getting her coffee. Fortunately I only had to call some people and set up appointments, I was done in an hour, leaving me plenty of time to take a shower before meeting up with Eleanor to go to IKEA. 

“OK so what all do we need?” El asked as we walked in the store.

“Um, everything, the flat’s completely empty.” I replied.

“OK…then why don’t we shop room by room.”

“Good idea.”

“So how many rooms are there?”

“There’s the living room, the kitchen, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. And there’s this one closet random closet that I’m not going to have a real use for so I think I want some shelves to turn it into a library.”

“A library?”

“Yeah, I like books is that a crime?”

“No I just never would have thought to turn a closet into a library.”

“Ooh and I want like a big comfy chair to put in there so I can read.”

“How big is this closet?”

“Pretty big.”

We started shopping and things were getting checked off the list rather quickly. When we weren’t deciding on how something looked we were chatting about random topics when El decided to bring up my relationship with Zayn.

“So how are things going with Zayn?”

“Good. After my freak out over the friend situation was resolved things kind of went back to normal.”

“Have you guys had sex yet?”

“Well we were going to and then I had a minor panic attack that I’m still kind of embarrassed for and now he wants to wait.”

“What happened that you had a panic attack?”

“He started saying really sweet things and it just threw me off because no one’s ever been that nice to me and I didn’t want to screw things up with how messed up I am.”

“How would screw things up?”

“I’ve always just had sex, there’s never been feelings involved, what if I were to sleep with him and it’s just like it always has been for me but for him it’s different? What if it means more to him than it does to me?”

“Well why did you want to have sex with him in the first place?”

“I-uh…”

“Was it maybe because you love him?”

“Maybe…” I responded sheepishly, feeling like an idiot for not realizing sooner.

“So the feelings are already there, it already means something to you even though it hasn’t happened yet I think you’re fine. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Actually I have a lot to worry about.” I mumbled under my breath hoping El wouldn’t hear.

“I heard that! What else are you worrying about? ‘Cause if it’s about Zayn…”

“It’s not about Zayn.” I cut her off.

“Well then what?”

“It’s nothing, I can handle it.”

“Oh hell no! Do not pull that shit with me! What’s going on.” she shouted stopping dead in her tracks.

“It’s nothing.”

“Elena!”

“I found a lump in the shower this morning.” I muttered in defeat.

“Like in your breast?” she asked as her face paled.

“Yeah, look I don’t want to dwell on it ok? I already have a biopsy scheduled, but it could be nothing and that is all I want to put out to the universe so can we just drop it?”

“Yeah, sure. Do you want someone to go to the appointment with you?”

“No it’s not like I find out right then, I have to wait for the results, I just go in get stuck with a needle and leave.”

“That’s it?”

“More or less, can we stop talking about it now?” I ended the conversation abruptly.

“Yeah sure, sorry.”

Everything else went smoothly that day. The furniture was delivered later that day and everything was put in its place. Zayn helped me pick up and move everything I still had at my dad’s house and he ended up staying the night but as always all we did was cuddle. I didn’t mind since I had a lot on my mind, I didn’t tell him what I told El because I didn’t want to worry him in case it ended up being nothing.

Two days later I was sitting in the sterile hospital room waiting for the doctor, nerves coursing through my veins. The procedure was quick and painless, and soon enough I was sent home and the waiting process began. They said twenty-four to forty-eight hours but it felt like a week. Zayn was with me when I got the call, we were watching TV and I had gotten up to get some snacks. 

“Hey babe someone’s calling you.” He yelled from the couch.

“Can you see who it is?”

“It’s coming up as St. George’s Hospital,” he read confused.

“Oh shit!” I stopped what I was doing and ran to the phone as quickly as possible. 

***

Why would a hospital be calling her?

“Hello?” she quickly and shakily answered the phone.

I couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation but her face continued to drop so I figured it wasn’t good. The color from her face flushed away as the person on the other line kept talking and eventually she had to sit down and her hand started gripping my leg.

“Can I make that appointment right now?” she let out with a voice deeper and softer than usual. “Yeah that’ll work, I’ll be there thanks.” She said before she hung up the phone and just stared in front of her with a blank expression.

“Is everything ok” I asked tentatively.

She just shook her head slowly as she fought back a cry. I pulled her into my lap and cradled her in my arms as she let out her strangled sob. That one sob soon turned into a gush of tears and choked cries as she opened the gates that had been holding back her emotions. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” I tried. She just shook her head again, unable to speak.

“Will you talk about it later?” she stayed unmoving in my arms and I was about to tell her she didn’t have to when she finally nodded, somewhat unsure of herself. It was a few hours of just holding her while she sobbed uncontrollably until there were no more tears to be shed and she simply didn’t have the energy to cry anymore. 

“Do you want me to get you something to eat or drink or something?” I asked trying to be helpful and not pushing her to talk before she was ready.

“No I’m fine.” She whispered.

“C’mon you were going to get something to eat before the phone call and that was a few hours ago, you have to be starving.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“What do you want to eat? Pizza? Chinese?”

“Chinese sounds good yeah.”

“Ok what do you want me to order?”

“I don’t really care just get like one of everything that’s highlighted on the menu, if I don’t eat it now it’ll get eaten later.”

“OK I’ll call and then I can go pick it up―”

“No! Just have it delivered I don’t want to be alone right now.”

“OK I can do that.”

I left her alone on the couch while I ordered the food but I kept an eye on her. She was sunken in on herself, curled up as tight as possible looking numb to the world around her. It scared me to see her so broken. 

“Ok the food will be here in about thirty to forty-five minutes.” I informed her as I sat down next to her.

“Thanks.” She scooted closer to me almost immediately, wrapping her arms around me and snuggling her face into the crook of my neck.

“Do you want to talk about it yet?”

“Sure,” she sighed. “A few days ago I found a lump in my breast so I had a biopsy done. The nurse just called to give me the results and sure enough the cells are cancerous.”

“OK…but you can have it removed and everything should be fine right?”

“The doctor is concerned with the size of the mass and the fact that my ovarian cancer had spread to my lymph nodes. There’s a possibility that the cancer was picked up and then dropped off in my breast and if that’s the case then the cancer could be pretty well developed by now. More than likely removing the tumor won’t be enough, I’ll probably have to go through chemo and radiation again.” she fought back more tears as she explained her situation.

“Hey, shh shh. It’ll be OK; you’ve done this before you can do it again. And you’re not alone; I’ll be there with you every step of the way. Besides, we don’t know for sure how bad it is, let’s not jump to conclusions and make a mountain out of an ant hill ok? When’s the appointment? I want to be there.”

“You don’t have to―”

“I want to.” I assured cutting her off.

“It’s just going to be more tests and I’ll have to wait for the results again, it’s no big deal.”

“It is a big deal Elena, and I want to be there so will you just shut up and let me be there?”

“OK,” she sighed in defeat. “It’s Wednesday at 2:30”

“Ok. I’ll be there.”

She never left my side the rest of the night cuddled into me even as we ate. She was hurting and I could feel it but I knew she didn’t want to talk about it more. All I could do was try and make sure she knew I was there for her and that she could talk to me if she wanted. It was getting late and I could feel her struggling to stay up.

“Will you stay with me tonight? I don’t really want to be alone.” She asked barely above a whisper.

“Of course.”

I pulled her in closer to me for reassurance. We watched TV for a little while longer before she couldn’t stay awake anymore and I put her to bed before I climbed in next to her and held her as she drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you like it! leave feedback letting me know what you think! :)


	14. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> meetin' the fam!

Wednesday rolled around and Zayn was still persistent on going so I stopped arguing. I knew nothing would happen today, just more tests to see how progressed and aggressive the tumor was so they could figure out a game plan on how to treat it. Quite frankly Zayn was more in the way than helpful but he was just trying to be supportive and I appreciated his effort. I made a follow up appointment for a week later to discuss treatment options and again Zayn insisted on going. On the way back to my flat we picked up some pizza and ice cream because according to Zayn if there was ever a time for comfort food it was now. A week later we were back at the oncologist’s office.

 

“After going over your test results and getting a better look at the tumor I would advise a mastectomy. Of course if you’re not comfortable with that then we can remove just the tumor but there will be no guarantee that we would be able to get all of the cancerous cells. I also recommend a round of chemo and radiation.”

Those words hit me like a ton of bricks. Mastectomy. I would lose my breast, for the rest of my life I would only have one boob. I wanted to curl into a ball and cry but I knew it was the only option if I wanted to be done with all the cancer shit. 

“How soon can we schedule the mastectomy?” I asked; my mind made up.

“Are you sure this is the route you want to take? This isn’t a decision to take lightly and you don’t need to make it today.” The doctor replied.

“I’m sure. I’m tired of having cancer. With the ovarian cancer I opted for a lumpectomy the first time and ended up having a complete hysterectomy when I had to go through this cancer shit for the second time. Just take the whole breast, it’s not like I’m ever going to have to breastfeed my children.” I made a vain attempt at a joke. 

“OK let me just go over my schedule with my secretary and we can get you in as soon as possible.” The doctor left the room leaving me and Zayn in silence. 

I let out a long sigh. “Are you ok?” Zayn asked concerned.

“I’m fine. I’m just tired. I’m tired of having cancer, I’m tired of giving up body parts, and I’m tired of losing my hair and having to grow it back! I’m just sick and tired of having cancer!” My sentence had started calm and grew angry by the end. Zayn just put his hand on my back to rub small circles. 

“Hey,” he cooed softly, “It’s ok. You’ll be fine, and I’ll be here with you through it all.

“I know I’m just…” I trailed off.

“Angry, I know. And it’s fine, you have every right to be angry.”

I calmed down before the doctor came back in. “There’s an opening in my schedule on Monday at 7am if that works for you.” I looked to Zayn knowing that he would want to be there. He nodded and I agreed to the time slot. He gave me the information about surgery and what I can and can’t do beforehand and explained that once I was healthy again after chemo and radiation I could have my breast reconstructed which calmed me some.

We went back to his flat this time and he cooked dinner. We were silent as we ate simply because I was just too tired to come up with a conversation topic. Zayn found one however. 

“I want you to meet my mum.” He said breaking the silence of the room.

“What?” I replied, confused and caught off guard.

“Well it’s just, she knows about you, and how I feel about you, but she still doesn’t know you.”

“Oh. OK. Yeah I guess that’s fine.” I replied.

“Great! I was hoping that you would come with me to Bradford this weekend.”

“Oh so by mom you really meant family.” I joked.

“Yeah I guess, is that still ok?”

“Yeah that’s fine.”

“So. I was thinking we would leave Friday night so that we had all Saturday and Sunday.”

“OK. I will probably be working on Friday because I want to try and finish this project before my surgery so I probably won’t get home until 3 or 4.”

“Great. We can have an early dinner then leave?”

“Sounds like a plan.” I smiled.

***

I could tell she was nervous about meeting my family. She didn’t eat breakfast and an hour into the drive she still hadn’t said anything other than hey since she had finished work. She had nothing to worry about I knew my family would love her, how could they not? Maybe she wasn’t actually nervous about meeting my family; she was having surgery on Monday morning so I probably shouldn’t jump to conclusions about how she’s feeling.

“Is everything ok babe?” I asked trying to figure out what was wrong. 

“Yeah everything’s fine.” She fake smiled.

“Well something’s wrong; you’ve hardly said two words to me.”

“I’m just getting nervous about the surgery. I don’t really like needles and anesthesia makes me feel really bad.”

“You have a bunch of tattoos how can you be afraid of needles?”

“OK first of all the tickle of the tattoo gun and the piercing pain of being stabbed in the vein are two completely different feelings. Second of all my veins are small so they generally miss or roll the vein or simply go right through it and they end up having to stick me a million different times several different places. So yes, I don’t like needles.”

“Oh. Well I’ll tell you what, when it’s time to get your IV you can squeeze my hand as tight as you need.” I smiled as I held her hand and intertwined our fingers

“Thanks.” She chuckled. “Will you also come with me to get my new tattoo?”

“Your new tattoo?”

“Yeah, when I beat this I’ll have a new date to add to my collection!”

“Oh that’s right, you have the dates you beat cancer on the back of your neck! I would love to be there. Will you need to hold my hand then as well?”

“No! I can handle a tattoo. I was sixteen when I got my first tattoo and I went all by myself and I did just fine!”

“Wait don’t you have to be eighteen to get a tattoo?”

“Yupp.”

“But you were sixteen?”

“Yupp.”

“How did you manage that?”

“It’s New York. You can find sketchy places that are sketchy enough to not question your age but not so sketchy that you’ll catch some disease. Plus I had a fake ID.”

“You were just a little rebel weren’t you?”

“Pretty much! But I also had my shit together; I had a job bought my own clothes and things. It’s not like I was just running wild around the city.”

“You are so weird! I love it!”

“I like to think of myself as a riddle.”

“Well it’s definitely a riddle I want to solve.”

“You are so corny sometimes! You’re such a dork.” She laughed.

“But you love me anyways!” I smiled cheesy, all teeth and crinkled eyes.

The rest of the ride wasn’t so tense. She was more relaxed and I was glad I could be there to help her. There was something about her that captivated me. I would rather spend my nights curled up on the couch with her doing nothing than going out without her. I would rather have her elbow digging into my chest, have her kicking me in her sleep, and have her hog all the covers than have a bed to myself. The boys had warned me about falling for someone too quickly but there was just something about her, I knew it would work out. I’ve never felt this way before with any other girl. I honestly don’t know why she’s with me. Half the time she looks at me like I’m an idiot, but I can see the glint behind her eyes that assures me she’s in love with me. She sees right through me, she knows I’m not the bad boy everyone sees me as. She knows I’m just a big dork and she even calls me out on it; but she loves me in spite of it, maybe even because of it, and I couldn’t ask for anything more. 

***

The closer we got to his house the more nervous I got. What if his family didn’t like me? Would he still love me if his family hated me? I had a tendency to come off as rude without meaning to. What if I screwed it up? I already didn’t have the best first impression with his mother. I didn’t need to make it worse and I hoped everything would go well.

As we were about to walk in I realized I had forgotten my jacket and my scars were exposed. That only made things worse. I wasn’t comfortable in my scars around new people yet. I really hoped no one notice or said anything. I knew there was no fixing my mistake now so I took a deep breath as we walked in. The second we walked through the door his sisters were all over him and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Mum! Dad! Zayn’s here!” the littlest one yelled.

“And he brought a girl!” the middle child added. “Are you his girlfriend?” she asked turning her attention back to me.

“Yes she is.” Zayn answered for me.

“Why do you have scars on your wrists?” the little one asked. I stuttered not knowing how to respond. “We went to Disney Land and there was a girl there with scars like that but they were going the other way, and Peter Pan said that she had fought off pirates is that how you got yours? Fighting off pirates?”

I chuckled. “Yeah I’ve fought some pirates.”

“Cool.” She responded with wide eyes, impressed at my accomplishment. Their parents came into the room and she turned her attention to them. “She’s fought off pirates look,” she exclaimed grabbing my arm, “she even has battle scars.” If this was any indication of how the weekend would go I was screwed.

“Anyways, guys this is my girlfriend Elena. Elena this is Safaa,” he said pointing to the girl exclaiming about the pirates, “Waliyha,” pointing to the middle child, “and Doniya.” He said pointing to the oldest. “And then of course you’ve met my mum, and then this is my dad.”

“Nice to meet all of you.” I smiled politely.

The rest of the night wasn’t as stressful and I was able to relax a bit. It didn’t seem like his parents didn’t like me and clearly I had already won over Safaa by telling her I had fought off pirates. They were all super nice and the longer I was there the more comfortable I was and I even started to forget about my scars. When we went to bed I finally let out the breath I had been holding all day.

“That wasn’t so bad was it?”

“No it wasn’t. I mean it was a little stressful at first but it got easier.”

“Yeah sorry about Safaa and the scars. I know you’re not always comfortable with them.”

“It’s fine. She won’t be the only person in my life to say something about them, I have to get use to it and comfortable with them eventually. Besides, I think she like me because I fought off pirates!”

“Haha. You have to admit that was pretty cute.”

“It was. Now get your ass in bed I’m tired and I want to cuddle.”

“Well excuse me for trying to put off getting kicked and elbowed in my sleep!”

I gasped at his accusation. “I do not kick or elbow you!”

“Yes you do! You hog all the covers too!”

“Lies!”

“Nope all truth!”

“Well I don’t believe it.”

“Well it’s true.”

“Just shut up and get in bed!”

“Alright alright I’m getting there.”

He turned off the light and climbed in bed next to me. I snuggled close to him and he held me tight. It felt nice, simple, easy. I felt no need to be self conscious or hyper-aware of what I was doing. I knew he wasn’t going anywhere and that I couldn’t scare him off, which is what I needed most, especially right now, with everything that I’ll be dealing with in the upcoming months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to get this to you guys i’ve been pretty busy lately. Let me know what you thought of the chapter! Feedback is always welcome!


	15. Insecurities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I edited this myself so sorry for any mistakes and sorry I haven’t updated in so long I promise I will update more often. Also I could use a second editor, I have 3 fanfics and I feel bad sending them all to her since I tend to finish everything at once so if you’re interested let me know! :)

I woke up groggily and fluttered my eyes open to see the hospital ceiling. I used all of my strength to turn my head to the right and saw Zayn in a chair next to me holding my hand and resting his head on the hospital bed. He was probably exhausted. He had insisted that he take me to the surgery and I’m sure he didn’t get any rest while he waited. I pulled my hand away slowly to wipe the exhaustion from my face and Zayn stirred.  
“Up for good this time?”  
“I think so yeah” I moaned. “Wait, I’ve been up before?”  
“A few times yeah but you were really out of it and fell back asleep quickly. The nurse finally agreed to let you sleep off the anesthesia some more and left after some convincing. I already signed your discharge papers so we can leave whenever you feel like you’re ready. Although I think it’s ridiculous that they kick you out so soon after surgery.”  
“After surgery you need to heal and the quickest way for your body to heal is to rest. In a hospital there’s always people yelling and noise being made so you don’t get any real rest. It’s easier to get rest in your own home in your own bed in peace and quiet.”  
“I guess that makes sense. You ready to go?”  
“Yeah.” I rolled out of bed and went in the bathroom to change. Zayn insisted on helping but I refused to let him and as I stood in front of the mirror, one side of my chest flat and covered in a bandage I was glad he was outside. I didn’t want him to see me like this. I tear slid down my cheek but I quickly brushed it away and continued getting dressed.  
Zayn insisted on wheeling me down to the car even though I had said I could walk but he was just concerned for me so I humored him. He helped me into the car and ran around to get in himself.  
“So am I taking you to your flat or mine?”  
“Mine. My bed is more comfortable and I don’t have neighbors that like to shag all through the night. But can we stop for some fast food on the way I’m starving.” I asked.  
“Sorry babe hospital said only light foods.”  
“They just say that so you don’t throw up! But when I don’t feel good I want greasy foods.”  
“Babe” he started but I cut him off.  
“Zayn! I’m hungry and I don’t feel good. One little burger is not going to hurt me now shut up and find a Burger King because I’m craving a whopper with extra mayonnaise.” I snapped.  
“Yes ma’am.”  
He got me my burger and I ate it with no problems. Zayn barely left me alone the rest of the day, the only thing I was allowed to do on my own was go to the bathroom. He slept on the couch though, which kind of hurt my feelings. He said it was because he didn’t want to hurt my wound while we slept and part of me understood that, but the self conscious part of me felt like he was just grossed out by the fact that I was now missing a breast. I fell asleep with a tear rolling down my cheek feeling completely insecure with my body; however it was hard to stay so insecure when I woke up the next morning to breakfast in bed complete with eggs bacon and toast.  
“What’s all this about?” I cooed. Zayn just bit his lip.  
“I’m really sorry but I have to go into work for a little bit this morning.”  
“That’s fine Zayn; I can take care of myself for the day.”  
“I don’t want you doing too much.”  
“Fine, bring me the remote for the TV and the laptop and I’ll only leave the bed for food and to pee until you get back.”  
“Promise?”  
“Promise.”  
He left shortly after and I decided to see what was on TV. It was early so it was mostly little kid shows and I decided to just forget about it and go online. I immediately went to my tumblr out of habit and just went with it. It occupied me for hours until I fell asleep and so did the computer. I woke up when Zayn came back.  
“You look sleepy.” He said.  
“Yeah,” I yawned, “just woke up from a nap.” I moved to get out of bed and Zayn was immediately at my side.  
“What do you need?”  
“Relax babe, I just have to pee and you can’t exactly do that for me.”  
It took me a while to come out because I had gotten brave in the bathroom and decided to peel back the bandage and take a peek. However, I caught a glimpse and decided against it. When I came back into my bedroom Zayn was on my laptop with a concentrated look on his face and his eye brows knitted together. I froze. I hadn’t closed out of the browser which meant he was looking at my tumblr. He was looking at my tumblr, which was dedicated to a certain boy band with favoritism towards a certain bad boy. I probably looked like a stalker to him now. God knows all the things I’ve posted on there. He probably thinks I’m just another crazy fan and that I’m only interested in him because of who he is, especially since I had hid it from him. All I had told him was that I knew of him, I hadn’t mentioned that I was a fan who daydreamed about meeting him and having him fall in love with me. My dream had finally come true and he meant so much more to me than I ever expected him to and now it was going to all come crashing down. I wasn’t going to have my happy ending anymore. Zayn noticed my presence now and looked up.  
“I found your blog.”  
I collapsed to the floor and started sobbing. Everything good about my life was about to be ripped away from me.  
*****  
“I found your blog” I smirked. I had meant for it to be funny but instead it sent Elena into tears. I panicked and rushed over to her and rubbed her back soothingly. “Hey baby calm down.”  
“I-I’m s-so-sorry I didn’t tell you I was a fan. I-I just d-didn’t w-want you t-to think of me like th-that. I-I really d-do l-love you p-pl-please don’t leave me.” She sobbed uncontrollably.  
“Leave you? What are you talking about? I would never leave you. Baby please calm down this can’t be good for you. You could pull your stitches. Please calm down love, no one is leaving anyone. Come on love deep breaths in…and out.” She finally started to calm down and breathe properly again.  
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was a fan who dreamed of meeting you.”  
“Hey it’s fine. At least you dreamt of meeting me and having me fall in love with you. I think I would’ve been a little crushed if I found out you secretly longed for Harry.” She chuckled at that and I was glad she was starting to feel better.  
“You’re not mad?”  
“No baby of course I’m not mad. The fact that you are a fan is a plus. At least I know you like my best mates and support me and the band.” She gave me a weak smile. “Hey, I get why you didn’t tell me. You didn’t want to be brushed off as a crazy fan.”  
“I didn’t leave the coffee shop with you because I wanted to meet the others or even spend the day with you. More than anything I did it because you were nice to me and I just really wanted a friend.”  
“I kind of figured you didn’t care about who I was when you accused me of being an axe murderer.”  
She laughed and the smile I loved lit up her face again. “You really don’t mind that I was an obsessed fan that had a blog dedicated to you?”  
“You didn’t have a blog dedicated to me you had a blog dedicated to Zayn Malik.”  
“Um last I checked that was your name.”  
I chuckled. “That’s not what I meant. I meant that you had a blog dedicated to Zayn Malik International Superstar, 1/5 of the biggest boy band in the world, the mysterious bad boy. Not Zayn, the dorky guy who makes corny jokes and is so concerned about his girlfriend that he left work early to go back to taking care of her.”  
“You left work early? You didn’t have to do that go back to work!”  
“No, I don’t want to go back to work. I want to get up off the floor and go into the living room and watch re-runs of old shows while I cuddle you on the couch and tend to you every need. Okay?”  
“Okay.” She sighed.  
We were curled up on the couch watching a third re-run of friends when a thought struck me. “Which one do you like better?” I asked.  
“Hmm?”  
“Which Zayn? Would you rather have the bad boy Zayn?”  
“Girls like the idea of Bad Boys. But in reality all you get is your heart broken. What a girl really wants is for a bad boy to be good just for her. She wants him to be a bad boy to the rest of the world but a kind caring, maybe even dorky guy for her. I wouldn’t change anything about you, I was intrigued by Zayn Malik the bad boy; I fell in love with Zayn the dork.”  
“Sorry I guess I just had a moment of insecurity.”  
“It’s fine. But, um, speaking of insecurity I want to talk to you about something.” She pressed.  
“What do you want to talk about?”  
“Um last night you slept on the couch, and I know you said it was just because you didn’t want to hurt me but I can be really insecure sometimes and it made me feel like you were like disgusted by me or something.”  
“Babe no. Why would I be disgusted of you?”  
“Oh I don’t know maybe because I’m missing a boob.”  
“Babe, I love you and I honestly haven’t even thought about that. I was truly just terrified of hurting you in my sleep; I would feel awful if I did something to hurt you. I’ll sleep with you tonight though, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel that way.”  
“It’s not your fault really; I just get really insecure sometimes, especially with everything I’ve been through. No one’s ever been there for me the way you are so I just keep expecting you to leave like everyone else has.”  
“I’m not going anywhere babe.”


	16. Rescue

It had been a few weeks since my surgery and I was starting to feel better; I could even move around easily and do most things by myself; however that didn’t stop Zayn from being as helpful as he possibly could be. We were lying in bed and I was just about to fall into the abyss of peaceful uninterrupted sleep when I was rudely awoken by the shrill cry of my phone piercing the silence of the room. I groaned and reached for my phone as I checked the time, almost two in the morning.

“Elena?” the instant I heard the terror in the voice I was wide awake. 

“Lacey what’s wrong?”

“I snuck out to go to this party and at first everything was fine. But then this guy started hitting on me and now he won’t leave me alone.” She cried hysterically into the phone. 

“Are you OK? Where are you?”

“I locked myself in an empty bedroom but my friend that I came with ditched me and I don’t know what to do I didn’t know who else to call. Please come get me.”

“Where exactly are you? I’ll be there in ten!”

She gave me the address and we hung up after I told her to call me if anything else happened. I sprung out of bed to get Zayn’s keys and raced out of the apartment.   
When I got there it looked like the party was ten minutes from being broken up by police. I made my way into the house searching for where the bedrooms might be. Eventually I found a hallway with a bunch of doors. One door in particular had a boy in front of it begging to be let in and I figured I had found Lacey. I walked over and pushed the boy out of the way to get to Lacey, it was way too early and I was way too cranky to care about being nice. 

“Look, I don’t know who you are, but I’ve got this under control, I don’t need your help.” The boy spat as he grabbed onto my arm. 

“If you had it under control you wouldn’t be locked out now would you? That’s my baby sister in there and we’ll be leaving now so you can go find someone else to harass.” I replied as I pried his hand off of me. 

The boy muttered a “whatever” before walking away.

“Lacey, it’s me are you ok?”

“Elena? Is that you?”

“Yeah can I come in?”

She slowly opened the door and let me in. We spent another 20 minutes locked in there talking about what happened and what we were going to do. We settled on taking her back to my flat and having her stay the night so that we wouldn’t wake up her parents. 

“Where have you been? I have been worried sick!” Zayn frantically shouted as soon as we walked in. 

“Ok, Imma need you to calm down. We came here so that we wouldn’t have this confrontation.” I replied as calmly as possible as I allowed Lacey to walk into the flat as well. 

“What’s going on?”

“Lacey went to a party that got a little out of hand and there was a guy that didn’t quite understand the word no, so she called me to come pick her up.”

“Are you ok?” he asked Lacey to which she just nodded.

“C’mon, I’ll show you to the guest bedroom,” I directed to Lacey and guided her down the hall. “There’s some sweats and stuff in the dresser if you want something to sleep in, the bathroom is just down the hall, and help yourself to anything in the kitchen if you get hungry or thirsty.”

“Thanks, for everything.” She said as I left the room.

“No problem, we’ve all been there. Get some rest.”

I walked into my bedroom to find Zayn sitting up in bed waiting for me. I climbed into bed and let out a heavy sigh as I cuddled into his side. 

“You know, you could’ve woken me up and I would have picked her up, you don’t need to be doing a whole lot right now.”

“Yeah cause Zayn Malik at a teenage house party broken up by the cops would totally go over well.”

“The cops were there?” he shouted.

“Relax, I explained to the officer that she wanted to leave anyway and that she spent the majority of her night locked in a bedroom hiding from some guy that was harassing her and he agreed that she had been through enough tonight and let me take her home.”

“Okay well next time you’re gonna leave in the middle of the night at least wake me up and let me know.” He said lowly as his hold around me tightened. 

The next morning I woke up to the sound of laughing and the smell of something delicious. When I made my way to the kitchen I found Zayn and Lacey cooking a pancake breakfast. 

“Morning sleepy head.” Zayn punctuated his sentence with a kiss to my temple. 

“Sleepy head? It’s only 9am…and we were up until 4!”

“Yeah well, you were still the last one up!” Lacey joked with a smile on her face. It was an odd sight for me really; I don’t think I had ever seen her smile. She had always been the poster child for teen angst. 

“We made you pancakes,” Zayn said

“They were my idea! A way of saying thank you for last night,” Lacey chimed in.

“As much as I appreciate the thought, I have this thing I have to do this morning, and eating beforehand doesn’t usually go well.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I guess I forgot; I’m a horrible boyfriend.”

“No you’re not it’s-“

“What’s going on? What thing do you have to do that you can’t eat beforehand?”

Zany and I stayed silent as we shared a few glances.

“Will someone tell me what is going on?”

I took a deep breath before I answered. “I have a chemotherapy treatment scheduled this morning.”

“You have cancer! Are you going to die?”

“If I was going to die I probably wouldn’t subject myself to such painful treatment. I had cancer not too long ago and I very clearly remember all the horrors that go along   
with treatment. If I had a death sentence I would probably pack up my bags and see as much of the world as I could before I died. This cancer is very treatable and I’m not going to lie to you it’s not going to be very pretty but I’m not going to die. Now eat quickly because we have to get you home before I have to go to the hospital for treatment.”

“Can I go with you?”

“To the hospital? I mean it’s a fairly long process and pretty boring. Do you really want to be stuck there with nothing to do?”

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation.

“Well ok then, I guess you can come. Just don’t let Dad know, this day is going to suck enough as it is, I don’t need him making things worse.”

“Is your relationship with him really that bad? I mean isn’t this a time that you’d want family around?”

“Family is the people who love you and support you, two things he never did for me.”

“But-“

“Look! He may have been a loving and caring dad for you, but he wasn’t for me. I woke up on Christmas when I was three and he was just gone, left without a moment’s notice, and he never came back. The dad I had and the dad you have are two very different people.”

“It’s not like he’s there for me either. I mean I snuck out of the house last night and no one has even noticed. I could be lying dead in a ditch somewhere and they wouldn’t even know I was gone until the police showed up to tell them I’m dead. But in spite of all that I would still want them there with me, they probably wouldn’t come, but I’d want them to.”

“I-I didn’t…”

“No one ever does. You think I’m always angry and defiant because I think it’s cool? No I have parents that spend more time at work then they do at home and can barely   
even remember my birthday.”

“But when I-“

“They were just putting on a big show so as not to trigger any “suicidal urges” or whatever; it stopped the second you left.” At this point there were tears in her eyes threatening to spill over.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” I pulled her into a hug and she just cried, Zayn came over and rubbed her back as she sobbed out her last few tears. 

It was nice having Lacey and Zayn with me during my chemo, they were a nice distraction. Zayn and I actually really got to know Lacey and vice versa. I felt like she let us in to a place she keeps hidden from the general public. I felt better knowing what she was going through because I could be there for her. I had been in her position before and I didn’t let anyone in and I didn’t have anyone to help me. 

When Zayn was driving home I wasn’t feeling very well and his driving wasn’t helping. “I swear to god Zayn if you keep driving like that the backseat of your Range Rover is going to get a new paint job.”

“I’m sorry, I’m doing the best I can,” he replied.

“Just don’t step on the brakes and gas so hard, ease into it, like there’s an egg under the pedal that you don’t want to crack.”

A few more minutes of driving and he still hadn’t taken my advice. “OK seriously Zayn like you need to pull over or something. I need some fresh air and a place to puke.”

As I was emptying the contents of my stomach I heard Zayn and Lacey whispering to each other.

“Seriously though I could drive better than you.”

“What’s wrong with my driving? I’m a perfectly safe driver.”

“Safe yes, pleasant no.”

“Fine would you like to give it a try?”

“Yes actually!”

As soon as Lacey was behind the wheel I wasn’t as nauseous anymore. She drove much smoother than Zayn. 

“That’s it Zayn. You’re fired. From now on Lacey gets to drive me home from chemo.”

“Never mind that she doesn’t even have a license and we could totally get a ticket for this.” Zayn replied; his voice laced with sarcasm.

“Oh calm down we’re only a few blocks away and if we get a ticket I’ll pay it!” 

When we were back at the flat I went straight to my bedroom to change back into pajamas. When I came out carrying as many pillows as possible, the comforter, my laptop, its charger, and three different books with me Zayn and Lacey were all laughs. 

“Um…what exactly are you doing with the whole bedroom babe?” Zayn asked as her tried to hold back laughter.

“Yeah you know I think you might have forgotten a pillow back there,” Lacey joined in.

“Not forgotten, left. It was too weak, had to move on without it,” I replied with no hesitation.

“Seriously babe what are you doing? Why didn’t you just climb into bed you still would’ve had all this.”

“Because! The couch is closer to the kitchen and I need to stay hydrated and I’ll probably get hungry soon and I won’t want to walk all the way from the bedroom to the kitchen to get something to eat. I get really picky after chemo treatments and it would just be a bunch of back and forth trips. Plus, the couch is more comfortable to sit up in and there are a lot more comfortable position options. Lying on my side helps with the nausea and I can’t lie on my side and still see the TV in my bed.”

“Well ok then! The couch it is,” Zayn replied.

“Lacey you’re more than welcome to stay here for as long as you want, I’ll probably be watching pointless shows and movies and I might be a little whiney and you’ll be on your own for lunch and dinner, but you are welcome to stay. Of course anytime you want to go home just let us know.”

“Thanks, I think I’ll stay a while.”

Five movies, two Netflix marathons, Chinese takeout and a pizza later we were all passed out in the living room for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thinking about doing the next chapter in Lacey's POV. Let me know what you think!


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